Aer Lingus, unions begin six weeks of talks

Unions and management at Aer Lingus started talks at Dublin Airport this morning on the airline's plan to reduce its workforce by more than 1,300.

The talks on the Aer Lingus restructuring plan are to run for the next six weeks and will be facilitated by Mr Kevin Foley, director of conciliation services at the Labour Relations Commission.

Unions representing staff in the airline are concerned at the scale of the 1,325 planned job cuts from the 4,000-strong workforce, the redundancy terms on offer and working conditions for staff who opt to stay with the company.

The company yesterday said September 14th was the deadline for receipt of completed application forms, but not the deadline for acceptance of the package.
 
A Siptu spokeswoman said it was expected that Mr Foley would issue a report once he had heard submissions from both sides on the issues.

She said the issue of the September 14th deadline set by the company for redundancy applications had been addressed, in part, by the airline acknowledging that this was a deadline for completed application forms, but not for accepting the package.

The airline's chief executive, Mr Willie Walsh, has said the terms of the redundancy package will not be improved.

Under the deal, all staff are entitled to a minimum payment of €40,000. However, unions are seeking the inclusion of shift allowances and overtime when staff pay is being calculated to estimate someone's entitlement.