TEAM sell-off plan stirs unfinished union business

Communication - or the lack of it - remains the central problem between management and unions at TEAM Aer Lingus. And what little trust has been built through the company's highly-structured communications system has been undermined by the rash of speculation about TEAM's future.

Even after the company confirmed to the unions on Wednesday that it wanted to sell TEAM by Christmas and pay them £25 million for their trouble, the immediate response of the craft unions was to present the company with a letter demanding an urgent meeting to discuss outstanding disputes stretching back two years.

The letter said: "This is essential before any consideration can be given to any new proposals the company may care to make."

Significantly, it also sought a review of the Labour Court recommendation which saved the company from closure in 1994 through greater flexibility and a pay freeze. Management sources warned that back-tracking on this could seal the fate of TEAM.

The exchanges are indicative of the industrial relations problems which remain at the heart of the company's difficulties.

Traditionally, communication took place between the company and employees through the Shop Stewards Negotiating Committee which was dismantled after the 1994 dispute that almost closed TEAM. Today there are regular information meetings at which management briefs staff at all levels.

The company claims that the system is probably the most comprehensive in Ireland. But a review of the new procedures produced by the chairman of the Labour Court, Ms Evelyn Owens, two years ago said that many problems still arose "due to a failure of communication and a lack of understanding of some of the issues". There appeared to be a genuinely held view on the unions' side, she said, that they were being bypassed.

With rising concern about the future of TEAM - fuelled by media speculation - the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, intervened two weeks ago to demand more information on negotiations between the Aer Lingus Group and potential investors in TEAM.

Subsequently, the chief executive of Aer Lingus, Mr Gary McGann, addressed a mass meeting of TEAM workers last Friday.

He outlined to them the options of either struggling to survive in an increasingly difficult global market or seizing the opportunity of a strategic alliance. He told employees that job security, financial compensation for the loss of Letters of Comfort - and even some fringe benefits like travel concessions with Aer Lingus - might be preserved in a strategic alliance.

But he could not answer the key questions of who potential TEAM investors were, or what would be expected of the workforce after the heads of agreement were signed. Management only began to answer those questions this week.

The primary interest of the craft unions at present appears to be reviving the shop-floor structures dismantled in 1994. The spokesman for the craft unions, Mr Eamon Devoy of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, told Mr McGann that his address did not constitute consultation as far as the TEAM group of unions was concerned.