Airline staff serve notice of industrial action

AER LINGUS cabin crew have served notice of industrial action to the airline in a row over rosters.

Impact trade union last night said its cabin crew members would take the work to rule action in a week. The union does not expect that the action would have an immediate adverse effect on passenger travel.

Aer Lingus said it would do “everything in its power” to ensure that customers cabin plans were not disrupted.

The airline said it was “regrettable” that “after a year of talks, two separate ballots and a binding arbitration process” the union’s cabin crew members had chosen to threaten Aer Lingus customers with industrial action

Management and unions have recently been in talks on how to implement recommendation issued by the Labour Relations Commission in August.

The commission recommended a revision of existing agreements in order to increase cabin crew flying times to an overall 850 hours per year.

The union said it served notice after senior management decided to “ abandon an agreement” about the implementation.

The union said it had reached agreement with human resources on Monday to suspend some of the disputed working arrangements in order to facilitate talks.

However, it said that senior management rejected this agreement and the union had “no option” but to serve notice.

The company said it was engaged with the union as part of a technical group to put productivity improvements into practice.

The union insisted on preconditions before the group could carry out work and “effectively sought to re-negotiate issues which had already been the subject of binding arbitration,” Aer Lingus said in a statement.