Workers subjected to 'intimidation'

Workers at Aer Lingus have been subjected to "psychological warfare" and "intimidation" over the past year under a management plan to force them out of the company, it was claimed yesterday.

Siptu Aer Lingus branch secretary Christy McQuillan, who met with company management yesterday evening, said its members have been operating in a fraught environment since the company began to seek voluntary redundancies last September.

"The company behaviour throughout this plan has been characterised by the release of very limited information, whereby its real intentions are never declared," he said.

Among practices which had damaged morale, he said, was the proposed roll-out of new "multicoloured" uniforms, which appeared aimed at repositioning the airline as a budget carrier.

"They were like something you would wear on a beach on a fine day," Mr McQuillan remarked. "They had them to demonstrate to all and sundry that the airline we know and love was going to fade away. That was very difficult for people who had spent decades promoting the airline as something representing the State. They were being told that it was going to disappear. It demoralised people . . . It was psychological warfare."

Mr McQuillan added that the uniforms were "provocatively" displayed in cabinets where cabin crew and handling staff mixed. However, this was denied by a company spokeswoman who said proposed new designs never went on display.

She confirmed, however, Aer Lingus commissioned a fabrics company to develop a new "smart casual" uniform to a quality level that was "costeffective and easy-care".

Union officials met Aer Lingus chairman John Sharman yesterday evening to discuss the fall-out from a leaked memo on the management's "tactics".

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Impact cabin crew representative Christina Carney said: "The record shows that Aer Lingus management did try to impose unnecessarily difficult shift patterns that would have hit staff with families hardest."

In addition, she said the company tried to assign "allegedly 'surplus' pilots to pointless 'training' programmes" under a strategy the union successfully opposed. She added it was extraordinary this "unnecessarily hostile approach" was taken when Aer Lingus was making record profits, and when staff had saved it from bankruptcy.

"An apology would be nice, but it's more important that the company works to rebuild a positive working environment where this won't happen again. We're prepared to work with them on this, but we won't tolerate further attempts to bully staff into submission," she said.

Impact assistant general secretary Michael Landers said a "core tactic" of the company was to "tap people on the shoulder" to inform them they were no longer needed.

"We have actually been living with these tactics for the last 12 months, and we have successfully resisted many of them. They were very real. The company did try and use these tactics. This was not just a draft document."

Of the plan to subject pilots to "tedious training programmes", Mr Landers added: "We saw it for what it was - a fairly blatant and transparent attempt to intimidate people out of the company."

About 700 redundancies were secured by the company under its restructuring plan. About 500 were represented by Siptu and most of the remainder by Impact.

The company has since suspended its voluntary severance deal pending the completion of fresh talks with the union.