Aer Lingus and its unions have clashed over the scale of losses the firm is experiencing. IMPACT assistant general secretary Mr Michael Landers said yesterday the airline was "trying to put the frighteners on people" with its figure of £2 million (€2.54 million) a day, while the firm insisted this was in fact the position.
The row underlines the scale of the industrial relations problems facing the company, even if State aid is forthcoming. Aer Lingus's director of corporate affairs, Mr Dan Loughrey, said company cash reserves of £200 million at the end of September were falling by £2 million a day due to trading losses, reduced cash flow and continuing spending commitments such as wages and aircraft leases.
But Mr Landers said the airline traditionally lost money at this time of year. When seasonally adjusted, the net loss to Aer Lingus from the crisis was nearer £1 million a day. While this was still a serious problem, it meant the union "has to challenge very strongly the financial assumptions on which the company's 2,500 job losses are based".
There was considerably more co-operation between unions and employers at EU level, when they met senior officials of the European Commission's directorates for transport, competition and employment yesterday at a "social dialogue" summit. In a joint statement afterwards, they criticised the Commission's response to the crisis so far.
"There was a general feeling that the Commission did not realise the gravity of the situation," the assistant general secretary of the European Transport Workers Federation, Ms Brenda O'Brien, said afterwards. The statement said the Commission's communication earlier this week showed "little evidence of a co-ordinated response to what was a war situation". The statement accused the Commission of pursuing its own agenda during a major international crisis when the US government had acted promptly to support its own airlines.
This meant the "international level playing pitch" was severely jeopardised, particularly on transatlantic routes. The Commission had to review its implementation of EU competition rules and state aid and the industry had to take into account employment supports.
Employers and unions will lobby all the member-state governments and will probably send a delegation to the Council of Ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, is travelling to Luxembourg on Monday to continue her own lobbying campaign, after being briefed on the situation at Aer Lingus by its chairman, Mr Tom Mulcahy, tomorrow.
Yesterday, she met the French transport minister Mr Jean Claude Gayssot, who was visiting Dublin. She later described the meeting as "very constructive". She also spoke on the telephone with her counterparts in Greece and Italy.
Government sources are optimistic that there is growing recognition among member-states that "exceptional times require exceptional remedies".
Meanwhile, SIPTU will mobilise its 4,000 Aer Lingus members in Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports to lobby TDs to have EU regulations amended. SIPTU national industrial secretary Mr Noel Dowling said on his return from the Brussels meeting; "Members nationwide are extremely concerned at the European Commissions' wholly inadequate response to the crisis at Aer Lingus".
