Seanad Report: Claiming that the Siptu leadership did not have the support of its airport-worker members, Shane Ross (Ind) said that, as legislators, they should not allow a "small group of antediluvian dinosaurs" to hijack and damage the privatisation of Aer Lingus.
This union, which was leading the drive for social partnership and promising that that process would produce industrial peace, had called a strike at Dublin Airport yesterday.
"These are the guys who are antediluvian in their outlook on industrial relations. They escaped from Noah's Ark several thousand years ago."
Martin Mansergh (FF) said that while he regretted any disruption in public services, what were antediluvian were some of the attitudes to social partnership and industrial relations, which seemed to date from somewhere pre-1913, that were expressed in the House and were regularly espoused on the pages of a certain Sunday newspaper. "Attempts to introduce a neo-liberal Thatcherite system of industrial relations in this country will not succeed."
Brendan Daly (FF) said that Aer Lingus employees at Shannon had fears that went beyond privatisation. There were many in the company who were anxious about their livelihoods. "I do not condone the action taken today, but I think it is understandable that they would express this frustration because they seem to be caught in a spider's web between the company, the Government and their own unions."
Leader of the House Mary O'Rourke said they were all aghast at the strike at Dublin airport. "But we do recognise that there are concerns that workers have which had not been addressed.
"It's all very well, if you are sitting in a comfortable leather armchair, to rant about them, but if you are going home to a partner and children, and if you have to explain that you don't know if you are going to have a job or what your terms are going to be, it's a different matter altogether."