CABIN CREW at Aer Lingus who have refused to operate controversial new rosters could be removed from the payroll from as early as today.
The airline management is scheduled to hold individual meetings with about 30 staff who yesterday declined to co-operate with new rosters. Sources said, depending on the outcome of these meetings, some staff could be suspended from today.
Aer Lingus warned last week that staff who persistently refused to co-operate with the rosters would be sent home and removed from the payroll.
The union Impact, which represents cabin crew, has said any move to suspend its members could lead to disruption. However, it believes any disruption to flights will be caused by the absence of staff who are suspended.
It is understood Impact is not planning to organise further industrial action or walk-outs in the event of cabin crew being taken off the payroll.
Yesterday Aer Lingus cancelled a return service to Boston following what it said was the refusal of cabin crew represented by Impact to operate the flights under the new roster system.
Passengers who were scheduled to travel on the Boston service were offered flights to New York and road transportation to their original destination or the alternative of being rebooked on flights to Boston today.
The airline said it hoped to operate a full schedule today, but it could not rule out the possibility of further disruption.
Both the company and the union blamed each other yesterday for the cancellation of the Boston service.
Aer Lingus said in a statement: “The sole responsibility for these cancellations, and the corresponding disruption to customers’ travel plans, lies with the Impact trade union which continues to take industrial action despite 15 months of negotiation, agreement, clarification, conciliation and binding arbitration.”
Impact said the cancellation of the Boston flight yesterday was avoidable. It said the flight did not have a cabin manager on board as required under the terms of binding arbitration issued by the Labour Relations Commission last year. In the absence of a cabin manager, the company had insisted that cabin crew staff should take over the position. Under an existing work-to-rule over the roster issue, which has been under way since last October, its members were refusing to take on voluntary “acting up” arrangements, including the duties of a cabin manager.
The union said the airline did not roster other available cabin managers for the Boston flight, and when cabin crew declined to take on the cabin manager duties Aer Lingus cancelled the service.
The airline has maintained that a new roster system and associated revised rules are necessary to secure an increase in flying hours for cabin crew to 850 per year as part of its overall cost-saving plan known as “Greenfield”.
Impact national secretary Matt Staunton told the company on Friday that cabin crew had accepted the requirement in the Greenfield agreement to increase flying hours to 850 a year as part of overall working time. However, he said cabin crew workers had not voted to accept rule changes imposed by the company.
Aer Lingus said on Friday that having endured 14 weeks of industrial action it would “no longer tolerate circumstances in which cabin crew will not work their contracted hours/rosters”.