Senior SIPTU officials will meet representatives of Aer Lingus cabin crews today to persuade them not to defect to rival union IMPACT.
Last week the section committee representing 1,650 cabin crew was dissolved by SIPTU after it told the secretary of the Aer Lingus branch, Mr Tony Walsh, that it intended to campaign for a transfer of members to IMPACT.
The immediate cause for the threatened defection was the failure of SIPTU to provide them with their own branch and branch secretary. There are about 4,500 people in the Aer Lingus branch.
Mr Walsh said yesterday that the threatened withdrawal came at an unfortunate time, when the union was about to enter talks with Aer Lingus on a new productivity deal. It is also in discussions on changes in the contracts for seasonal cabin crew and permanent part-time workers.
Aer Lingus worker director Ms Joan Loughnane has been appointed chairwoman of the cabin crew committee by the union. One union activist who supports the breakaway said yesterday that SIPTU had grown too close to the company. She had no doubt that the dissidents could recruit the 80 per cent of cabin crew required to allow them to change unions under the rules of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Both the Irish Airline Pilots Association and the Irish Executive Staff Association, which represents management grades in Aer Lingus, have already joined IMPACT. But IMPACT's deputy general secretary, Mr Shay Cody, said yesterday the union was not seeking to recruit cabin crew.
There had been informal approaches to IMPACT, Mr Cody said, but SIPTU had been advised of this and the cabin crew had been urged to resolve their differences with their own union.