TEAM Aer Lingus unions have been told that the company is prepared to consider an early retirement scheme for employees, if they agree to transfer to the new owners, FLS.The Danish conglomerate has exclusive rights to acquire the Aer Lingus aircraft maintenance subsidiary until February 26th and it is currently carrying out a due diligence exercise. However shop stewards representing craftworkers, who comprise nearly two-thirds of the workforce, have withdrawn from the talks. They say they will not return until the company agrees to accept unconditionally employees `Letters of Guarantee'. The letters guarantee the right of former Aer Lingus employees in TEAM to return to the parent company. They also guarantee that Aer Lingus will not sell its majority shareholding in TEAM.Aer Lingus has made it clear that it wants to sell TEAM and buy out the rights of the TEAM workers. So far it has offered up to £28 million in compensation.Some of the union officials representing TEAM staff are continuing to negotiate with the company on a possible buy-out.

Yesterday officials representing 500 SIPTU members and over 100 craftworkers supervisors and engineers met with the company under an agreed facilitator, Mr Gerard Durkan SC, to try and move the negotiations along.Afterwards SIPTU official Mr Tony Walsh said that, "In the last analysis SIPTU is committed to expend whatever effort and resources are needed to bring the necessary expertise to bear on this issue. We want any final document we negotiate to be as comprehensive and informative as possible for members."Without comprehensive discussion and information it will be impossible for them to make an informed choice." In an obvious reference to the stance of the craftworkers' shop stewards, he added that, "The issues are complex and cannot be answered by glib or ill-informed comment".