Have we got two sets of rules in this state, one set, American football rules, for incoming companies, and another, GAA, for native companies, whose success we regard with churlish disdain? Do we say that in American football rules, relations with the workforce are purely the business of the company management, but that in GAA rules the internal working arrangements are not merely the business of management, but also of politicians, trade unionists across the country and even mainland Europe? Have we two sets of referees, one set detecting nothing wrong in the private relations between company and workforce, another set blowing a disapproving symphony on its whistle because those internal relations are perceived as being a threat to the workings of society at large and to grand concepts like 'Partnership 2000?'
In other words, Ryanair. Why is its refusal to negotiate with trade unions seen on a par with the Massacre of the Innocents, whereas an identical refusal by the huge US computer industry is regarded as being perfectly respectable? Ryanair has 900 employees, 39 of whom want union representation with the company, and there is uproar. IBM has over 1,500 workers, and if 58, 580 or 1,580 of them wanted to be represented by unions, IBM would take precisely the line that Ryanair is doing.
No unions here
We stay silent about this. Why? IBM is expanding its workforce to 5,000, all of whom will be non-union. DEL is non-union too, and its workforce is scheduled to rise from 1500 to 5,000. The non-union Gateway has 2,000 employees, with a target of about 4,000, all of whom will be non-union. Hewlitt Packard, Microsoft, Motorola, with 4,000 employees, are all non-union. And ahead of the pack of course is Intel, with 5,000 employees, and blow me down, what a surprise, Intel doesn't negotiate with trade unions either.
There has been much talk in the Dail, at protest rallies and on television of Ryanair's Victorian attitude towards trade unions. Why is that term used about a native Irish company, which has been the greatest single benefactor to the ordinary Irish airline traveller since the opening of Collinstown, and not about the great pioneeringly modern American companies whose work practices are almost identical? Why do politicians like Niall Andrews for whatever reason cite the Amsterdam Treaty against Ryanair, but not against the huge American companies who, unlike Ryanair, are here with huge sweetheart tax breaks?
Sweetheart. Remember that word? How deafening the silence when it transpired that Ryanair, far from benefiting from a sweetheart deal with the Government over the rent-free use of a building at Dublin airport as alleged, had built the bloody thing in the first place, with the Ryans' private resources as guarantee, which it had passed on, free, gratis and for nothing, to the state. Did you notice that when the splashed allegations of sweetheartery vanished, they were not replaced with the splashed truth in our newspapers? Ryanair is no more a charity than IBM is. It is run for profit. No profit, no Ryanair, and no cheap airfares. Niall Andrews recently stated: 'Ryanair, whose owners and senior managers have been very substantial beneficiaries of air transport liberalisation, must accept the right of their employees to be represented by a union.'
Differing figures
What? Why must Ryanair do anything of the kind if none of the US companies cited above is expected to? And why should Ryanair's bosses not benefit from the creation of probably the most dynamic airline in Europe, under the very industrial conditions (including higher take-home pay for baggage handlers than in Aer Lingus) which a small part of the workforce now objects to? Last weekend, two things happened. Firstly, there was a demonstration in support of the 39 striking baggage handlers by, the organisers tell us, 2,000 workers. Garda figures tell a different story. They say 500 people were present. Secondly, Ryanair took on its thousandth employee.
What do we learn from these two things? We learn that twice as many people are actually prepared to work for Ryanair as are prepared to demonstrate against it, and only 3.9 per cent of Ryanair employees - who knew full well what company they were joining - are now demanding trade union recognition.
In truth, many of those who were demonstrating against Ryanair were employees of TEAM Aer Lingus, that gothic horror story whose history goes a long way to explaining Ryanair's aversion to unions. Aer Lingus, God love it, is in negotiation with nine craft unions at Team, whose members, if you recall, were promised permanent, lifelong employment by the state if need be, regardless of any other consideration, by the very Government Niall Andrews (quoted above) so vociferously supported.
SIPTU's reasons
Nobody can blame SIPTU for trying to expand its membership. SIPTU is a commercial organisation whose income - absolutely essential to pay the three SIPTU leaders' salaries of £75,830 per annum each - depends on member's dues. It is a form of pyramid selling. And nobody can blame SIPTU for trying it on with Ryanair - while the national workforce rises dramatically, SIPTU's membership is static, and largely rooted in white collar employment and government service. SIPTU is merely trying to survive.
But I really would like to be spared SIPTU's (and others') human-rights talk about Ryanair when we hear no such talk about the union-free US companies moving here. Ruairi Quinn says that the Labour Party would work to give statutory rights to trade union recognition. I note he says work to give such rights; and no doubt he hopes he fails. Because he knows as well as I do that the moment recognition of trade unions is enforceable in law, we might all stand at the departure lounge in Dublin Airport, alongside the growing ranks of unemployed, bidding DEL, IBM, Intel et alia farewell.