THE NATIONAL executive of the air traffic controllers’ branch of Impact will meet today in Co Tipperary to consider the dispute with the Irish Aviation Authority which has already seen disruption caused to up to 20,000 passengers.
Union sources said that at meetings held yesterday in Dublin, Cork and Shannon the mood among air traffic controllers was very much in favour of supporting colleagues who had been suspended by the Irish Aviation Authority for refusing to co-operate with new technology projects.
If the suspensions remain in place, the meeting of the national executive of the air traffic controllers’ branch will have to decide on whether to escalate the dispute.
Last night it appeared that further industrial action was likely.
Both sides in the dispute say that they are prepared to take the issues to the Labour Court and there have been contacts in the background to bring such a scenario about.
However, as of last night there was no agreement on the basis on which any such Labour Court hearing would be convened.
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.”
The Irish Aviation Authority says that it is prepared to lift the suspensions imposed on 14 air traffic controllers if the union will remove a ban on co-operation with new technology projects introduced from the start of the year.
The company maintains that this instruction was put in place by the union to put pressure on it in relation to a pay claim for a 6 per cent increase and to resist plans to make staff contribute to the cost of their pensions.
The union has rejected this assertion and maintains that the stoppages yesterday stem solely from the decision by management to suspend its members.
Impact says it wants the suspensions lifted without pre-conditions and that it wants to go to the Labour Court to determine whether the proposals for co-operation with new technology exceed normal ongoing change.
“The company is being dishonest when it says that the air traffic controllers should be co-operating with new work practices in advance of a Labour Court hearing.
“They say that the new work practices are ‘normal ongoing change’, when that is the precise issue that the Labour Court has been asked to rule on – whether they are ‘normal ongoing change’ or not. The status quo is the existing work practices – not the new ones,” it said.
The Government has already strongly criticised the action by the air traffic controllers in holding a four-hour stoppage yesterday, which brought the country’s main airports to a standstill. The dispute has already reopened the debate on whether strikes in essential services should be banned .