Aer Lingus rejects pilots' proposals to call off strike

Industrial relations:Aer Lingus last night rejected proposals by pilots to drop their planned strike, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, in return for talks on the pay and conditions for staff to be recruited for the airline's new base in Belfast.

Aer Lingus management had written to the Irish Airline Pilots' Association branch of the trade union Impact late on Wednesday offering to attend talks at the Labour Relations Commission if the union abandoned its planned 48-hour strike.

Yesterday morning the union wrote to Aer Lingus offering to stand down its strike if the company took matching steps to stand down its moves to recruit pilots in Belfast on terms different to those set out in existing agreements.

Informed sources said the union indicated it would call off the strike if the company withdrew its advertisement campaign for pilots in Belfast and gave an undertaking not to process any applications received to date.

Sources said the union also wanted management to enter into talks at the Labour Relations Commission on the terms and conditions that would apply for the Belfast-based pilots.

Sources said the union made alternative proposals under which it would be available for immediate talks without preconditions at the Labour Relations Commission while the strike plan remained in force.

It is understood the union said that in such an event it hoped progress in the talks could allow both sides to stand down from their respective positions.

However, in a letter last night Aer Lingus rejected these proposals.

Airline chief executive Dermot Mannion said that he had read the proposals "with great disappointment". "It is regrettable that you have placed such unnecessary and unhelpful obstacles to our attempts at trying to find a resolution to this dispute. We cannot agree, for many reasons - commercial and otherwise, to these stringent preconditions you have placed on any meeting between the company and Impact/Irish Airline Pilots' Association," he said.

He said it was vital that any meeting took place in an environment where all uncertainty had been removed for passengers. "I therefore reiterate our position that we remain available to meet to resolve the current situation when the threat of strike action has been fully removed from our passengers, who have already to date been seriously discommoded by your actions," he said.

Sources said the company did not see Impact having a role in negotiating pay and conditions for pilots recruited outside the jurisdiction. Impact is opposed in principle to the establishment of a two-tier system of pay and conditions for pilots within Aer Lingus.

It also fears the recruitment of pilots on less favourable terms in Belfast could undermine its existing agreements and bargaining position in the Republic.

Under the Aer Lingus plan, pilots in Belfast would receive higher pay than those in the south, at least at the early points of the scale, but they would not have access to the existing defined benefit pensions scheme. New, more flexible, work practices would also apply in Belfast.

The Aer Lingus Employees Share Ownership Trust, which owns 12.5 per cent of the airline, said yesterday it would be seeking a meeting with the company chairman and would be making contact with other relevant shareholders. It expressed concern at the decision to end the Shannon-Heathrow service and indicated that it believed an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders would take place.