The head of the country's largest union has called on the Government to introduce special legislation to allow for the establishment of new "fair employment " rules in the aviation sector.
Jack O'Connor of Siptu said that such a move would create "a threshold of decency" in the aviation business.
He made his comments to reporters at the union's regional conference in Tralee just two days before Aer Lingus is schedule to unveil controversial new cost-cutting plans at the airline. It has been reported that the company is considering out-sourcing up to 1,500 posts.
Mr O'Connor warned of the union having to mount "the stiffest resistance possible to what is supposed to be proposed" by Aer Lingus on Monday. However, he said that there remained some doubt as to precisely what the airline management would put forward.
He said that there was a great deal of concern in the union about Aer Lingus where it has around 1,700 members.
"It is rather ironic that against the background of billions of euro committed to bail out bankers at taxpayers expense that people who are taxpayers are being fed to the wolves. And it won't wash", he said.
Mr O'Connor said that cutting workers' wages would not save the airline and that this would depend on "the direction and leadership it is given in the context of what is happening in that industry at the present time."
"We will have to see what kind of direction that the leadership of the company envisages going forward.
"But anyone who suggests, and there is a concern about this, that by cutting workers' wages, you can save Aer Lingus is talking nonsense", he said.
Mr O'Connor said that what was happening in Aer Lingus could no longer be isolated from what was happening in aviation in the country generally. He said that this had been a rapidly growing industry for a number of years but that workers' wages were "being driven through the floor board".
"We will be insisting that the Government takes steps to address this, and there is a means by which it could address this, by enacting legislation to put in place fair employment rules which would establish a threshold of decency in that industry".
"I would be drawing parallels with the provisions for that has been made for the bankers. If there are laws that can be passed for millionaire bankers then surely there can be laws passed to facilitate workers and provide the basic threshold of decency in a key industry in this country", he said.
Mr O'Connor also warned that Siptu would not support any new referendum on the Lisbon Treaty until it saw new legislation on collective bargaining rights which is promised by next June under the terms of the proposed new national pay deal.