Aer Lingus jettisons 676 jobs and cuts pay

AER LINGUS announced on Wednesday morning that it wants to axe 676 jobs and cut pay and conditions across grades to stabilise the national carrier in the volatile airline industry.
Management says it wants to reduce costs by €100 million by 2011.
Jobs flagged to go are 489 from its pilots, cabin crew and ground staff. An additional 187 jobs will go in back-office operations by the end of 2011. Many services may be out-sourced. Aer Lingus currently employs 3,800 people.
Fears are being expressed for the future of Shannon Airport if the raft of cuts is implemented.
As An Phoblacht goes to press on Wednesday, Aer lingus unions were meeting members and examining the company plan in detail but initial responses were that the proposals were severe.
One of those unions, IMPACT, said that cabin crew had stepped up to the plate on cost-cuts year after year. Nine months ago, they delivered savings of €15 million. “The company has come back looking for more, with no regard to existing agreements,” IMPACT said.
67 paper jobs shredded
ABB, which makes products for the paper and pulp industry, is to sack 60 workers at its plant in Dundalk and seven more in Dublin.
The jobs are being out-sourced to Shanghai in China.
Sales and marketing, engineering and support activities will see 41 staff still employed in Dundalk.
ABB blames the world economic downturn and ‘the need to increase competitiveness’.

Taxi drivers halt two-day gridlock

TWO DAYS of traffic chaos in Dublin city centre ended last Friday when Department of Transport officials finally agreed to meet 100 protesting taxi drivers from the recently-formed Irish Taxi Council.
The main taxi drivers’ unions did not support the action, which gridlocked O’Connell Street, but did echo concerns about the saturation of the industry with deregulation and the threat to taxi families’ livelihoods.
Another meeting with Government officials is due before 15 October.

Green Isle Foods bins Labour Court invite

THE Green Isle Foods firm in Naas, County Kildare, has rejected a union request to go to the Labour Court to solve a six-week strike over the sacking of three members of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) for alleged misuse of the company’s internet and IT system at the plant.
Thirty-five TEEU members have joined the strike and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has granted an all-out picket on the plant. Green Isle Foods has called the picket illegal.

ISME calls health workers ‘economic saboteurs’

SIPTU General President Jack O’Connor has pledged widespread industrial action and resistance to any more pay cuts in the public sector.
The SIPTU leader has also held out an olive branch to Government by saying he would be willing to re-enter partnership negotiations.
Meanwhile, the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises employers’ group has attacked SIPTU’s claim for a 3.5% pay rise for health service workers as “economic sabotage”.