Aer Lingus and Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) attempts to legally prevent SIPTU workers from striking have been condemned by unions and political activists as part of a wider attempt to attack trade union rights.
The pensions of several thousand workers have evaporated despite their having paid for them throughout their working lives.
Even management has conceded that as things stand at present 90 cents in every euro of their contributions are completely worthless to them.
In response to the granting of a High Court injunction to the DAA preventing a planned work stoppage by SIPTU members in the lead up to St Patrick’s Day, the SIPTU National Executive Council stated: “The dispute is now assuming even greater significance in the light of several legal actions initiated against SIPTU which challenge the very democratic right of workers to withdraw their labour in a legitimate trade dispute.”
Unite Regional Secretary, Jimmy Kelly, backed the SIPTU position. He said as well as the Aer Lingus action, “We have seen employers take to the courts to attack wage floors for low-paid workers, we have seen the Government – as the employer of public sector workers – introduce FEMPI legislation to undermine collective bargaining rights.”
He added: “Taken together, all these developments amount to a new juridical war on workers.”
Independent election candidate, Paul Mulville, who is running in the Swords ward where many airport workers live, said; “This is an attempt to undermine the basic principles of collective bargaining and workers’ organisation, and to turn back the clock on hundreds of years of workers’ struggle.”
