Socialist Party Statement on Aer Lingus and Shannon

national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis Friday August 17, 2007 20:33 by Jolly Red Giant - Socialist Party/CWI

Aer Lingus and government betrayal - Unions must act now!

There was palpable anger at a meeting of Aer Lingus workers at a meeting in Shannon Airport where Aer Lingus Chief Executive, Dermot Mannion, officially announced the move from Shannon to Belfast. Workers jeered, heckled and booed Mannion during his speech and many workers walked out of the meeting when Mannion indicated that he would not answer questions from the workers.

The primary reason for the Aer Lingus decision is an attack on the jobs, wages and conditions of Aer Lingus workers.

Aer Lingus, in moving the Heathrow slots to Belfast, will attempt to impose lower pay rates and poorer conditions on its new Belfast based workforce and they will also use contractors for ancillary work. Any move to expand Aer Lingus to Belfast cannot happen at the expense of jobs or services from Shannon, nor can the company be allowed to impose lower pay rates and poorer working conditions on a new workforce in Belfast.

Since privatisation, Aer Lingus management have being trying to impose wage cuts and job losses. They will use the move out of Shannon to further this agenda. The decision by the Aer Lingus pilots to take strike action is confirmation of the company's agenda. The pilots are striking because management plans to employ new pilots to work from Belfast on terms and conditions that are below those of the current workforce.

There is widespread anger and resentment at this decision by Aer Lingus right throughout the mid-west region and up and down the entire west coast. Local Fianna Fail Minister, Willie O'Dea, has claimed thousands of jobs are at risk in the region as a result of the Aer Lingus decision and has publicly attacked both Aer Lingus and Transport Minister Noel Dempsey for downplaying the possible impact of the decision.

However this decision is directly as a result of the privatisation of Aer Lingus. The very same business leaders and politicians (like Willie O'Dea!) who are now attacking this move by Aer Lingus were to the forefront in supporting the privatisation of the company, claiming that it would increase competition and protect economic and regional development in the mid-west. In contrast the Socialist Party outlined that the inevitable outcome of privatisation would be cuts in jobs and conditions for workers and attacks on services for customers.

The failure of the trade union leadership to act on this issue is unacceptable. As in 1993 the local trade union officials have handed over responsibility for campaigning against this decision to business leaders and right-wing politicians in the region. Workers in the region demonstrated in their thousands against the elimination of the Shannon "stop-over" in 1993. Yet the trade union leadership sat on their hands and failed to mobilise any opposition. Business interests in the region do not care about the jobs and conditions of the Aer Lingus workers in Shannon Airport. Their priority is the protection of profits, not the well being of workers and their families.

In order to protect the jobs and livelihoods of Aer Lingus and other workers in the region, SIPTU, IMPACT and the other Aer Lingus unions must launch an independent campaign of opposition. This campaign must involve the local community in Shannon and the wider mid-west region and involve protests, pickets and demonstrations to put pressure on Aer Lingus and the government to reverse the decision. The union leaderships must immediately campaign for strike action across the entire Aer Lingus group and among other workers in Shannon Airport and accept nothing less than the maintenance of the current jobs and conditions of airport workers.

The privatisation of Aer Lingus was always going to be about increasing the profits of the shareholders at the expense of the workforce. The Shannon debacle shows clearly that in order to protect the jobs, wages and conditions of the Aer Lingus workforce as well as the service to regions like the mid–west, Aer Lingus should be immediately taken back into public ownership.

Public ownership of Aer Lingus, under democratic workers' management is the only way to prevent future decisions that would be detrimental to the interests of working class people right throughout the country.