Neither SIPTU nor Ryanair has emerged with any great credit from the report of the Government inquiry into the chaos that engulfed Dublin airport last March. Ryanair is criticised for its aversion to trade unions; SIPTU for allowing a pay dispute, involving a small number of workers, to escalate to the stage where it closed the airport and caused serious inconvenience to thousands of travellers.
The Flynn/McAuley inquiry team recommends that the Government should formulate a code of conduct for essential services at the airport. In the longer term, it proposes that the High Level Group on Trade Union Recognition should formulate a more selective and flexible approach to union representation - especially in companies where trade unionists comprise a minority of employees. The swift response of the relevant Government ministers, Ms O'Rourke and Mr Tom Kitt, to the report and their determination that the debacle at Dublin Airport last March must not be repeated, is encouraging. The response of the main protagonists in the dispute, Ryanair and SIPTU, is less encouraging. Both remain firmly in their trenches. Ryanair's focus is on the defence of its own position. There is no acknowledgment that mistakes were made. SIPTU is similarly defensive, blaming the company for all that happened. Both SIPTU and Ryanair remain in a period of denial and self-justification, rather than resolution, is the order of the day. It is to be hoped that wiser counsel will prevail when both sides have reflected more fully on the report.
Hard as that is to contemplate, the Ryanair dispute has even more worrying ramifications. In recent months we have seen groups like the Garda, train drivers, craftworkers in the health services and bricklayers, embark on highly disruptive industrial action with impunity. All of these groups are better paid than the Ryanair baggage handlers.
The striking Ryanair employees did everything by the rules for nine weeks and were largely ignored. Ryanair ignored the mediation of the Labour Court and the behind-the-scenes efforts of Mr Kitt's officials to seek a compromise. Only when several thousand other airport workers took sympathetic - and totally unofficial - industrial action was a breakthrough of sorts achieved. There is a clear and very dangerous message emerging from recent disputes. We are in danger of creating a two-tier industrial relations system in this state. One tier is for the compliant, who keep the rules, and the other is for groups ready to flex their industrial muscle. The fault cannot all be laid at the door of trade union militants. Companies ready to maximise their profits at the expense of vulnerable employees and successive governments which have failed to grasp the nettle of union recognition, also have a case to answer. The inquiry team's report has bought everyone a little more time, but that is all. The challenge now is for the Government to ensure that the debacle at Dublin Airport is not repeated in any of our essential services. This State cannot retreat to the dark ages of industrial relations.