Last May the SIPTU committee representing 1,644 cabin crew decided to defect to IMPACT and bring as many members as possible with them. The committee chairwoman, Ms Nora O'Reilly, told SIPTU: "The divorce is final, you can keep the cat." IMPACT now claims to have 1,400 cabin crew, or well in excess of the 80 per cent required under Irish Congress of Trade Union rules for transfer from one union to another. It regards SIPTU's determination to hold on to members as futile. As one senior IMPACT source said: "SIPTU is in the denial phase."
But SIPTU believes the game is far from over. Its branch secretary at Aer Lingus, Mr Tony Walsh, says only 400 cabin crew members have requested SIPTU subs be stopped by their employer. He disputes the IMPACT figures and claims many cabin crew signed application forms under pressure. In some cases signatures were illegible and there is insufficient information on them to identify clearly the individuals concerned. SIPTU can be expected to examine each form with the intensity of election agents at a close count.
The problem for Aer Lingus is that SIPTU currently has exclusive negotiating rights for cabin crew. The company says it is awaiting the outcome of a meeting of ICTU's general purposes committee (GPC) next Tuesday before deciding its own position on who represents this key group. Its decision will be made on Wednesday.
Aer Lingus may be over-optimistic in its belief that ICTU will sort the problem out by Tuesday. If the will to compromise on the issue is there the GPC is ideally placed to do so because IMPACT general secretary, Mr Peter McLoone, SIPTU president, Mr Des Geraghty, and SIPTU general secretary, Mr John McDonnell, are all members. While IMPACT initially indicated it would co-operate with an ICTU inquiry into the membership dispute, the union's executive then decided to press ahead with the establishment of a cabin crew branch. This was because its new members made it clear they would not co-operate with an inquiry they considered to be a delaying tactic by SIPTU. But Mr Geraghty in turn made it clear yesterday that his union would challenge IMPACT's claim to have 80 per cent of the cabin crew and would insist the inquiry should go ahead.
"We would like the co-operation of IMPACT and are arguing that IMPACT should not be taking people into membership before the procedures of ICTU are fully utilised," he said. But an IMPACT spokesman said the union had gone through all the correct procedures, that numbers were growing and it now had more than 85 per cent of the total.
This leaves ICTU in an awkward position because there has been a long-standing strategic alliance between SIPTU and IMPACT on pay, social partnership and tax reform issues. SIPTU, with 200,000 members, is ICTU's largest affiliate. IMPACT, with 37,000, is its largest public service union.
But for any union the prospect of gaining, or losing, 1,644 members is no light matter. The financial cost to SIPTU of losing its cabin crew subs would be £188,000 (€238,710) a year.
Even more important is the signal it sends that the State's biggest union is vulnerable to poachers and not servicing the members adequately. Already there have been approaches by individual SIPTU members of the airport fire and police service, clerical and catering staff to at least two other unions. Such massive defection also radically alters the balance of industrial power at Dublin airport. Two years ago IMPACT had just 400 members there, all in the Irish Aviation Authority. Since then it has recruited the 400-strong Irish Aviation Executive Staff Association, which represents management grades in Aer Rianta and Aer Lingus, and the 500-strong Irish Airline Pilots' Association, which has members in Aer Lingus, Ryanair and most of the other major carriers out of Dublin. The accession of 1,644 cabin crew would leave SIPTU with 3,000 members, mainly in support areas such as information technology, clerical and general operative grades.
The disenchantment of cabin crew with SIPTU probably dates back to 1994 and the Cahill Plan to save Aer Lingus. At that time the company shed 250 cabin crew jobs. Those left were required to work harder and recruits had to accept lower entry grade pay rates.
With increased business, cabin crew numbers have climbed back to pre-1994 levels. The difference is that up to 1,000 of them are new recruits on low pay. In today's boom conditions SIPTU is receiving little thanks for saving jobs in hard times.
Mr Walsh and SIPTU activists at the airport date the decision by the cabin crew committee to defect to last January, when a vote of no confidence was threatened over lack of progress on pay. They argue that in the face of criticism the committee passed the buck to the union's official structures. They also say that an interim committee established four months ago has made significant progress and the company has already indicated it will concede at least 14.5 per cent in pay rises to lower grades.
Ms Nora O'Reilly, former chairwoman of the cabin crew, rejects this. Now chair of the new IMPACT branch, she insists SIPTU service was poor, it was too close to management - and "surely I am entitled to take my business elsewhere".
She describes IMPACT as a more professional union than SIPTU with expertise in areas such as employee share option schemes.
SIPTU has some of the most sophisticated negotiating, consultative and research structures in the State, but it has not managed to shed the cloth cap image. That could be a serious handicap in a consumerist era when growing numbers of workers want both a quality service and a good brand image from their representatives.
On Wednesday Aer Lingus may well find the situation no clearer. Ms O'Reilly has warned that her members will ballot immediately for strike action on pay - and union recognition - if necessary. The company could be in for a turbulent ride.
