Updated 9.59pm
SIPTU TODAY SERVED notice of industrial action on Aer Lingus and three airports.
The union said earlier it has served notice of industrial action on Aer Lingus, the Dublin Airport Authority and the Shannon Airport Authority.
Talks are ongoing over a pensions dispute.
A four hour work stoppage at Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports will take place from 5am to 9am on Friday 14 March.
SIPTU said that their decision “followed the refusal of the companies to engage in meaningful talks or to present reasonable or fair proposals during discussions in recent days aimed at resolving the pensions crisis over recent days”.
SIPTU said its representatives “remain available if the companies wish to enter discussions that could lead to a resolution of the pensions crisis”.
DAA ‘deeply disappointed’
The DAA has said it is “deeply disappointed” by SIPTU’s “unwarranted decision” to serve notice of possible industrial action.
It described such action as “completely unnecessary”, saying it “will cause significant inconvenience to the travelling public on a Bank Holiday Weekend”.
SIPTU claims that it has taken this action in relation to pension arrangements at DAA. But it has done so without any meaningful engagement concerning the proposals of the Trustee of the IASS pension scheme, which were only recently clarified, following a protracted three-year process.
The Trustee proposal, combined with last year’s Labour Court recommendation on pension arrangements, provide a clear framework within which a resolution to these complex issues can be achieved.
DAA said that yesterday it reaffirmed its conditional offer to invest more than €50 million in up-front payments into a new Defined Contribution Scheme for employee members of the IASS pension scheme, an offer which arises from the Labour Court recommendation.
The authority also confirmed that it was prepared to discuss how this proposed contribution might best be distributed, so as to mitigate the benefit cuts proposed by the IASS Trustee.
DAA recognises the valid concerns of employee members of the IASS about their pension arrangements and has made a fair and balanced resolution of this issue its key priority. It cannot however undermine its financial stability by responding to unsustainable and unreasonable pension demands by SIPTU that significantly exceed the terms of the Labour Court recommendation.
DAA has called on all parties to re-enter discussions to achieve a “sustainable resolution” to the matter.
First published 4.64pm
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say