TALKS AIMED at resolving a dispute between unions and management at Lufthansa Technik Airmotive Ireland are to begin today after both sides met the National Implementation Body (NIB) yesterday.
The NIB recommended that both sides in the dispute engage in “urgent and intensive” discussions to secure a planned $40 million contract for a new VS2500 engine and to maintain the 465 Irish jobs in the Rathcoole, Dublin plant.
Representatives from the TEEU, Unite and Siptu and management at the aircraft maintenance facility made presentations at Government Buildings yesterday to the NIB.
On Wednesday the firm put its 465 workers on protective notice in a dispute over changes in work practices, after staff on Tuesday voted to reject Labour Court proposals on the introduction of those reforms. The company said it had halted a planned $40 million investment in a new engine line as a result of the decision by the workers, and that 150 workers might have to be laid off.
After intervention by Minister for Employment Mary Coughlan both sides yesterday met the NIB. In a statement issued afterwards, the implementation body said that “in the course of discussions, both sides recognised the seriousness of the situation and expressed a firm desire to reach a speedy solution in the interests of maintaining the Rathcoole facility”.
