On 6 July,
hundreds of SIPTU Aer Lingus workers walked off the job for a one-hour
stoppage. The action was one hundred percent solid, supported by ground
operations, loading, cleaning, catering, clerical, IT, reservations
and all of the areas organised by SIPTU across the three airports in
Dublin, Shannon and Cork.
This was the clearest
answer to the lies being consciously put forward by the government and
their pimps in Aer Lingus management and the media that the sale of
the company is proceeding with the agreement of the workforce.
Day after day reports abounded in the media about the "fantastic
deal" being put together by management to win the support of the
workforce for the sale of the majority shareholding of the national
carrier. IMPACT workers had fully signed up to the deal, while SIPTU
was just posturing for some more concessions while most of their members
were keen for the sale to take place as quickly as possible, or so the
story goes! This was consciously being put about in order to demoralise
the staff and undermine the potential support from the public for any
action.
The reality is that no deal has been agreed and not one single worker
from any union has voted to accept the sale. Limited and all as the
action on 6 July was, workers were extremely glad to have something
to take part in to publicly demonstrate our opposition to privatisation.
For the past months, workers have been sidelined in the process that
has been underway towards the sale. Rather than waging a serious campaign
to halt privatisation, the unions have mistakenly devoted most of their
efforts to negotiations designed to "protect" jobs and working
conditions in a post privatisation period.
While SIPTU has continued to verbally express opposition to privatisation,
the reality of this position has been to send a signal to the staff
and the government that opposition is half-hearted and that privatisation
would be OK as long as the price is right.
Issues such as the pension fund, job security, the threat of outsourcing,
and outstanding pay claims all need to be addressed. However no deal
which includes privatisation can achieve this. In any case, the offers
that have been made known couldn’t even be dressed up as a concession.
A 3% pay rise, on top of the new national wage agreement, with record
numbers pulling out of partnership and urging a “no” vote,
is not much to celebrate. It is made worse by a 2% increase in pension
contributions, basically nullifying any gain.
In reality commitments on job numbers and no outsourcing are worthless.
Aer Lingus workers know that the best protection we have against the
race to the bottom is to maintain our semi-state status. There has never
been a privatisation anywhere that did not involve a massive attack
on jobs and conditions. The workforce in Eircom is half what it was
in Telecom, with contractors and sub-contractors on reduced pay and
conditions being the order of the day, as outsourcing replaced permanent
pensionable jobs.
This is the future for Aer Lingus workers unless there is a serious
turnaround in terms of the tactics being put forward by the unions.
Rather than preparing for the worst, that is, a privatised company,
a major campaign should have been waged throughout the trade union movement
against privatisation. Instead the leaders of the unions sat down with
their "partners" in government and negotiated a new deal.
Some partners! It is this speaking from both sides of their mouths by
the unions that has derailed and demoralised the staff.
It was somewhat ironic that the day of the first industrial action against
the privatisation of the company, was the very day that the government
gave Aer Lingus management the green light to put in place the mechanism
to sell 60% of the company by the end of September.
If any workers were under the illusion that the political establishment
would swarm to our rescue and halt the government in its tracks, that
fairy story has now been clearly put to bed.
The privatisation train has now well and truly left the station. The
process is more advanced than it has ever been before, but it has not
been completed yet. It is still possible to stop the sale, but only
by the organised muscle of the workforce in the form of sustained and
serious industrial action. This industrial action needs to hit the operation
causing maximum disruption in order to put the government under maximum
pressure. The action on 6 July shows that the staff are willing.
There is no justification for privatisation, other than to facilitate
the neo-liberal agenda of the government that supports the sell-off
of every part of the state and semi-state sector and seeks to commodify
all essential services.
Therefore they want it to take place quickly and quietly. Anything that
scuppers that will make it more difficult for them and the nearer it
gets to an election the harder it would be.
