Chris Dooley,
Industry and Employment
Correspondent
SIPTU is to write to the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, today seeking detailed assurances about the future pay and conditions of Aer Rianta staff.
In the meantime, the union plans to proceed with plans for industrial action, over the planned break-up of the company, aimed at disrupting an EU meeting of justice ministers later this month. An intervention by Mr Brennan last Friday convinced other Aer Rianta unions that there were grounds for new talks with the Minister.
In a letter to the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr David Begg, Mr Brennan said the terms and conditions of Aer Rianta workers would be preserved after the company was broken up. However, Mr Michael Halpenny of SIPTU said yesterday that the union would be asking "searching questions" of the Minister, in a letter to be sent today.
The union wanted to know if Mr Brennan was making a genuine attempt to find agreement, or was engaged in "a media exercise that won't change anything", he said.
Mr Halpenny emphasised that SIPTU would continue to plan industrial action, announced on Friday following general meetings of workers at Dublin and Shannon airports. A meeting of SIPTU members at Cork Airport is to take place tomorrow, at which they are expected to endorse the plan for industrial action.
Unlike their colleagues in Dublin and Shannon, however, the Cork workers will meet knowing that Mr Brennan has offered concessions, considered by other unions to be significant. Staff in Dublin and Shannon were unaware of the Minister's intervention when they met on Friday. SIPTU's decision to go it alone on industrial action, and its subsequent failure to attend a meeting of airport unions on Friday afternoon, exposed divisions between unions on the Aer Rianta issue.
Officials of the ICTU will today begin trying to restore a common front between SIPTU and the other unions involved, the TEEU, IMPACT and Mandate. SIPTU has said it will attend the next group of union meetings. That is due to take place on Thursday but may be rescheduled. A spokesman for the Minister said yesterday that the situation was "quite confused" and Mr Brennan was awaiting clarity from the union side. If SIPTU goes ahead with industrial action, the intention is to target the EU meeting of justice and home affairs ministers in Dublin on January 22nd and 23rd. Disruption to flights carrying ministers and officials would be a severe embarrassment for the Government.
A threat of similar action at next week's meeting of EU ministers in Galway led to a phone message being relayed from the Taoiseach to Mr Begg on Thursday. Mr Ahern, who did not speak to Mr Begg personally, let it be known that a "dim view" would be taken of any such action.