UNION LEADERS are to decide today whether to escalate the dispute involving air traffic controllers which disrupted the travel plans of 20,000 people yesterday.
Airline services returned to normal last night following the stoppage which grounded flights at all the State’s main airports for four hours yesterday afternoon.
A full schedule was also due to be operated by airlines this morning, but a senior official with Impact, which represents the air traffic controllers, said an escalation of the dispute was likely “sooner rather than later”.
Impact’s national executive is to consider the issue at a meeting today.
The Government strongly criticised the industrial action by 300 air controllers, which caused the cancellation of well over 100 flights.
Speaking in the Dáil, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey described the stoppages at Dublin, Cork and Shannon as “inexcusable” and “unforgivable”.
He also indicated that the introduction of a “no strike” clause for personnel providing essential services would have to be examined in the wake of the dispute.
A total of 14 air traffic controllers had been suspended by last night by the Irish Aviation Authority for refusing to co-operate with new technology.
The authority says the controllers’s stance forms part of a campaign to secure a pay increase and to avoid having to make a contribution to their pensions.
It has said further staff could be suspended today if the controllers refuse to co-operate with new technology projects.
Impact said air traffic controllers were not taking industrial action in pursuit of a pay claim, or over new technologies, but solely because management had suspended staff.
A spokesman for the union last night said that if the suspensions remained in place, the national executive of the air traffic controller branch would consider the issue at a meeting today and make a decision in relation to any escalation of the dispute. Speaking yesterday following a meeting of air traffic controllers at Shannon, Impact assistant general secretary Michael Landers said: “If people are restored to the payroll there will be no further industrial action.
“In the absence of that, and we expect people to be suspended again tomorrow and possibly the day after, yes there will be further work stoppages and that is likely to happen sooner rather than later.”
A spokeswoman for the Irish Aviation Authority said last night that it would be willing to lift the suspensions of the 14 air trafffic controllers if the union would remove the ban on co-operation with new technology and agree to go back to the working arrangements in place prior to the new year.
The Irish Aviation Authority is also seeking assurances that at any talks at the Labour Court the union would be willing to put the issues of pay, contributions to pensions and work practices on the table.
The union wants the suspensions of its members to be lifted immediately without preconditions.
It wants the issue of work practice changes and co-operation with new technology to be assessed by the Labour Court to determine whether they represent “normal ongoing change”.
Impact has argued that the issues of the pay claim and pension contributions are separate matters.
The authority confirmed last night that it will dock a day’s pay from any member of staff “who walked off the job” to take part in the four-hour mandatory meetings yesterday.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said that his airline was four-square behind the Irish Aviation Authority in the dispute and said that Mr Dempsey should should tell the air traffic controllers to “to go back to bloody work or sack them”.
“It is one of the few cases where a public sector employer has stood up to blackmail by a bunch of overpaid and underworked public servants,” he said.