Detailed assurances about the job security of Aer Rianta staff are to be provided today by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, in a bid to avert a planned stoppage at Dublin Airport on Thursday, writes Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent
A letter from Mr Brennan is due to be delivered to the president of SIPTU, Mr Jack O'Connor, before lunchtime.
Senior officials in the Department of Transport spent the weekend working on several drafts of the letter, which answers a range of questions posed by Mr O'Connor in a letter to the Minister last week.
A spokesman for Mr Brennan said he was "hopeful" that today's response would provide sufficient clarification for SIPTU to call off Thursday's action. Union sources, however, expressed pessimism that the strike could be averted.
The two-hour stoppage, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., is designed to embarrass the Government by disrupting flights carrying EU justice ministers and officials to a meeting in Dublin.
Even if substantial guarantees about the future for Aer Rianta staff are provided by the Minister, Mr O'Connor faces difficulty in persuading strike leaders to call off the action. The union's Aer Rianta strike committee meets this afternoon.
A source close to Mr O'Connor said last night the president was "enraged" that militant members of the union had "jumped the gun" in arranging Thursday's action.
Mr O'Connor believes the organisers of the strike have played into the hands of SIPTU's opponents, and left him "wrong-footed in the public eye", said the source.
However, the source emphasised that the SIPTU president would not seek to have the action called off on the basis of a "play on words" produced by Mr Brennan.
"He has made it clear that he is prepared to do his damnedest to keep the airport open on Thursday, but only on the basis of commitments that are of real and substantial value to members."
If the Minister's letter did not contain commitments of that quality, then Mr O'Connor "will throw his lot in with the militants".
Unions are opposed to Mr Brennan's plan to break Aer Rianta into three management companies for Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports.
Mr O'Connor says the action is about protecting job security and terms of employment, and is not a challenge to Government policy.
The Minister has promised there will be no compulsory redundancies, and that the pay and conditions of staff will be protected.
In his letter to the Minister last week, Mr O'Connor sought detailed assurances under nine separate headings about how Mr Brennan could substantiate those promises.
One prominent union official expressed doubt last night that the Minister could provide the level of assurances sought.
Mr Dermot O'Loughlin, secretary of SIPTU's civil aviation branch, said the guarantees would have to be "much more detailed and substantial than anything we've seen before" if they were to be accepted. He believed it was "more probable than possible" that the action would go ahead.
Mr O'Loughlin brushed aside speculation that an action disrupting Ireland's EU presidency would incur the wrath of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and cause SIPTU long-term difficulties. "We have never found the Taoiseach to be a vindictive man. He has always been union-positive."
The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said yesterday it would be "very disappointing" if the strike went ahead.
"I believe it would be unacceptable for a small group of workers to go on strike simply because the Government is implementing a particular piece of policy," she said on RTÉ's This Week programme.