Thousands of  jobs in Aer Lingus are under serious threat as a consequence of the privatisation of a majority stake-holding in the airline. The responsibility for this situation lies firmly with Fianna Fail and the PDs. They chose to raffle one of the state’s oldest and most successful companies for a song and then feigned horror when along came Michael O’Leary!

This debacle absolutely vindicates those of us who opposed the privatisation of the airline. The government’s spurious justification for the sale now lies in tatters. Far from securing the airline’s future, they signed its death warrant. With lucrative landing slots in Dublin and Heathrow, prime real estate at Dublin airport, and hundreds of millions in cash reserves up for grabs, why wouldn’t Ryanair enter the foray? Whatever happens they will not lose, they could walk away now, netting millions in profit from a 70 year old company built by the taxpayer and the workforce.

The disgusting contempt that Michael O’Leary has shown Aer Lingus workers, openly threatening a massive slashing of jobs and stating that hell would freeze over before any Aer Lingus workers would be employed in his company shows the real face of this anti-worker company. Ryanair claims to be more efficient than Aer Lingus carrying significantly more passengers, with significantly less staff. Of course he fails to mention that most of the work in Ryanair is carried out by contract workers, and most of the functions are outsourced.

He asks what does the catering department do in Aer Lingus? He knows the answer, the same as Alpha catering does for Ryanair, except they do it on minimum wage with no benefits or job security. With 50% of cabin crew not directly employed, but on contract, O’Leary has openly put forward the target of 70% contracting. This is the type of future for airline staff in all companies unless workers organise to take serious action.

This is the race to the bottom Dublin Airport style, a process that has been ongoing for years. The Ryanair attack is being used by Aer Lingus management as a cover for yet another onslaught on “costs”, code word for jobs and conditions. If you accept the premise that competition with Ryanair is the goal, then the only way to achieve a reduction in costs of that level is to slash jobs and outsource services.

The workforce have sustained consistent attacks over the past decade, with the numbers employed in the airline being consistently eroded, by “agreement” -voluntary redundancy packages because people saw no alternative or fight being put up. Undoubtedly recent events are being orchestrated to lay the basis for thousands of others to exit the company.  These are jobs which will be lost to the young people of north Dublin who have been employed in Aer Lingus for generations.

The “solution” advocated by some is to get the staff to forego a long overdue pay rise to buy shares to stop O’Leary. This is utter nonsense and ignores the reality that jobs and conditions are under attack regardless of who gets control and the only defence is to go on the offensive. It is impossible to compete with minimum wage, anti-union companies, unless you’re prepared to work on less than the minimum wage. Workers fought over decades for relatively decent permanent, pensionable jobs. With rising interest rates and domestic bills we can’t afford to live on less than we have now. We have to defend our rights.

The unions should take these arguments and launch a campaign for decent jobs in all airlines and industries. The employers will not be swayed by “discussions”, but only by direct action.

AMICUS members working in the Bank of Ireland Group (BoI) are planning two days of strike action on 15 and 22 November. They are taking action in opposition to management’s arbitary introduction of a yellow pack “defined contribution” pension scheme.

This scheme means that BoI workers will no longer have a guaranteed pension but instead the level of their pension, will depend on the performance of the stock market. In reality this will mean instead of getting a definite 66% of final salary in a pension, BoI workers can now expect to get 26%-50% of their final salary. This will put thousands of BoI workers into poverty in their old age.

BoI has just announced record profits this year of €1.5 billion. This represents a profit of a little over €1 million per hour the bank is open! BoI can well afford to maintain pensions, especially considering that EBS workers successfully defended their pension scheme, even though their company is much smaller and less profitable than BoI. The record profits in BoI and the finance sector should mean an improvement in the pay and conditions of its workers, many of whom are low paid. It should also mean a better service for its customers, in particular there should be lower rates for exploited mortgage customers.

This new pension scheme will not just affect new entrants, it will affect all BoI workers as the existing schemes will be undermined as no new people will be paying into them.

Amicus are taking strike action, but they represent a minority of workers in the BoI group. The largest union in BoI, the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) have postponed holding a strike ballot pending a judgement of the Labour Court. The Labour Court has shown itself to be biased in favour of employers and has previously ruled in favour of most of BoI management’s “cost reduction plan”.   SIPTU are considering calling for a boycott of the BoI. This boycott tactic is not practical and is not what is needed.

In order for this attack on pensions to be defeated, BoI managment need to be hit where it hurts them, in their profits. The unions in BoI need to urgently come together to co-ordinate a series of well organised, effective strikes. Such a campaign can defeat these attacks but also be the first stage in an improvement in pay and conditions in BoI and for all financial workers.

The Executive Committee of the CPSU, the main civil service union, have decided to ballot its members on whether they want to stay within the national wage agreement or leave it and lodge independent pay claims.

The driving force behind this ballot are activists who are experiencing the impact of the changes contained within the new partnership agreement. While the membership voted to reject Towards 2016, it is uncertain if they will vote to go it alone.

Activists are angry because successive partnership deals have given management and the government concession after concession. The last and the current “partnership” deals have linked pay increases to accepting major changes to work practices and even on job security.

The unions’ Executive Committee voted to support the ballot and recommend rejection of partnership for two reasons. Firstly, it is mandated by a conference motion to consult the membership if the scenario of the union members rejecting a pay deal but ICTU accepting it arose. Also the majority of the Executive members believed they had to be consistent in their opposition to Towards 2016, which they had already rejected.

Socialist Party members on the Executive of the CPSU voted in favour of the ballot and the rejection of social partnership, despite raising concerns regarding the timing of this action. For a small union like the CPSU to independently break from the “social partnership” agreement will mean a struggle against the government and the leadership of ICTU. This is not an action that should be taken lightly. 

For such a campaign to be successful, the membership will need to be united around and committed to a campaigning strategy to force the government to concede pay rises above Towards 2016. This battle will also have to take on and defeat the detrimental changes the government are implementing to our working conditions. Inevitably this campaign will have to involve industrial action, including strike action. A question mark exists over whether there is confidence amongst a majority of CPSU members that this type of militant campaign can succeed at this time.

Whatever the outcome of the ballot, it is necessary for the most militant and determined activists in the union to band together in the task of rebuilding a campaigning opposition to the right wing leaders and officials who currently “control” the CPSU. A strong left opposition can play an important role in organising the members to resist the detrimental changes that are contained in Towards 2016.