£56m Aer Lingus offer to TEAM being `scrutinised'

Detailed scrutiny of the Aer Lingus £54.6 million severance offer to TEAM workers, including the examination of pension rights and flight concessions, was now taking place, while the £26 million takeover offer for the aircraft maintenance company from FLS was on the table, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, said yesterday.

Unions and management would be meeting tomorrow, she added, and consultation was taking place in smaller groups, after almost 60 per cent of workers rejected the letters of guarantee buy-out offer on May 25th.

"We are in a process and we have to wait to see that process worked through," Ms O'Rourke said.

The craft workers would get "top of the range prices" for their work and "plenty of work" under the ownership of the Danish conglomerate, FLS. The £26 million takeover bid was valid until July, she added, and was "a good deal. "I want to see the jobs retained and I want to see a future for aircraft maintenance," she said. Craft union workers are meeting today to consider their response to a letter from Aer Lingus management last weekend warning that their proposals would bankrupt the airline company.

Some of the craft unions are seeking an employee share option scheme and for Aer Lingus to maintain a 51 per cent stake in TEAM. They are also seeking pay rises and bonuses, which Aer Lingus employees received over the past five years.

Ms O'Rourke said FLS had stated they were only interested in a complete buy-out. For the TEAM workers to get parity with Aer Lingus workers would cost £20 million "in what is just beginning to be a breakeven situation" and from then on "it would be a yearly cost". Ms O'Rourke added that Aer Lingus management told her there was no possibility of increasing "in cash" their £54.6 million offer. The maintenance workers transferred to TEAM from Aer Lingus in good faith and she was "relying on trying to maintain that faith. "I would encourage them to engage in full consultation with management and work towards a satisfactory conclusion," she said.