THE chief executive of Aer Lingus, Mr Gary McGann, is to address the company's 6,000 staff at a series of meetings over the next few days to explain the implications of the threatened strike by pilots.
At a meeting last night, the pilots voted overwhelmingly by 245 to nil with four abstentions to hold a strike ballot. That process began immediately and is expected to conclude by noon Sunday. If, as expected, there is a majority for industrial action, seven days notice will probably be served for midnight on Sunday week.
The pilots are threatening industrial action because the company has refused to concede a 17 per cent pay increase awarded to them by an independent tribunal two weeks ago. Strike action will result in serious flight disruption.
As attitudes harden, the Irish Air Line Pilots Association has asked to share the platform with Mr McGann at the meetings he is arranging to brief staff but the company has refused the request.
Last night the chairman of the Aer Lingus group in IALPA, Mr Dermot Rafferty, asked if Aer Lingus was afraid to debate the issues.
The Aer Lingus director of corporate affairs, Mr Dan Loughrey, said Mr McGann was holding the meetings "to brief staff on the business implications" of implementing the tribunal's main report. "He is not debating the issues involved in the tribunal and that is why we turned down the IALPA request to share the platform. We said in response to the IALPA request that the place for those issues to be resolved was in face to face negotiations with the company which they have refused to do."
Mr McGann is expected to tell staff that concession of the tribunal's award would threaten the continued viability of the airline, which would be an indication that the company intends to resist the pay claim, even at the risk of a serious strike. It would also be intended to deter other unions in the group from pushing for similar increases.
The company representatives on the tribunal produced their own minority report and the company rejected the findings of the main body. But Mr Rafferty said last night that the company had entered willingly into the process and was criticising the findings "because it doesn't like the result it came up with".