Siptu has today denied Aer Lingus claims that the union failed to engage fully in the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) talks that broke down last night.
The carrier and Siptu seem to be heading for strike action after the airline withdrew yesterday from the talks and said it planned to go ahead with plans to outsource 1,245 jobs at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports.
In a statement today Siptu’s national industrial secretary, Gerry McCormack, rejected claims by Aer Lingus management that the union had failed to engage meaningfully in the LRC process to find annual cost savings at the national carrier.
“In fact we are convinced, by their refusal to answer some of the basic questions of most concern to our members, that the company was simply going through the motions”, Mr McCormack said.
“Quite frankly, the management team was fixated on outsourcing the vast majority of our members’ jobs, even though they knew SIPTU was opposed to allowing good quality employment to be driven out of the labour market by low standards and a race to the bottom.
He continued: “Not alone this, but the management team refused to produce figures to justify this strategy. Of particular concern was the value of any redundancy package on offer and the implications of such a massive shedding of jobs for the pension fund.”
“We would also question how much they would save from outsourcing. . . . Productivity levels have increased 340 per cent, staff cost ratios to passengers have improved by 23 per cent and our members are up to 65 per cent more productive than some of the ground operations competitors to whom the company is considering outsourcing the work.”
Following the breakdown of the talks after four weeks, Aer Lingus said it was "frankly disappointing" that Siptu had "failed to engage in any meaningful way" to produce an alternative proposal to its plan to outsource ground operations in a bid to cut costs and return the airline to profitability.
"The reality is that the airline does not have time on its side and cannot endure another year of losses in 2009," Aer Lingus said.
The airline said it would select preferred outsourcing suppliers by the end of next week.
Siptu shop stewards are to meet tomorrow afternoon at Dublin airport to consider the situation.