Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When Fine Gael and Labour took the very short-sighted step of selling the State's remaining shareholding in our national airline in 2015, we were told unambiguously that the jobs and conditions of Aer Lingus workers would be protected. We were told at the time by the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Paschal Donohoe:

I want to assure the House that IAG has confirmed that existing employment rights of the employees of Aer Lingus will be fully safeguarded upon completion of the offer ... Aer Lingus will engage in a process of consultation governed by agreed structures with staff and its representatives when any restructuring is required and ... it does not foresee a likelihood of either compulsory redundancy or non-direct employment.

That vision has not come to pass, sadly, because the reality, as I warned at the time, has been the opposite.

On Thursday, 16 November of last year, 20 staff members of Aer Lingus's guest relations were summoned to a meeting in Aer Lingus's head office. They were told it was a business briefing and that they did not need union representation. Despite this, they were told at that meeting that their jobs would be outsourced to North America from the end of February. This has been the strategy under way since 2015. In February 2016, the procurement department was outsourced to Poland, with the loss of 15 jobs. IT was then outsourced to India and the UK, part of the finance department has been outsourced to India, and now guest relations is going to North America, while most customer relations work has already been outsourced to Manila in the Philippines. On top of this, there are very serious rumblings about the outsourcing of catering and ground operations. We know operations such as Menzies Aviation are waiting on the sidelines to franchise the operation that is there. We are also informed initiatives are taking place in this regard, with no guarantees for the jobs or conditions of the workers there. Bad and all as that is, on top of that, the Aer Lingus chief operating officer told staff of the need to cut costs because of Norwegian Air and WOW Air. If that was not enough, Aer Lingus has come up with its own low-cost airline level which it is using to threaten workers with their own jobs and conditions. Aer Lingus claims it will set up a new company to compete with itself. You could not make this stuff up. It is an absolute race to the bottom.

We cannot go into the details of the case, but the Minister may be aware that groups of workers in guest relations at Aer Lingus have a respect and bullying case before the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, next month.

The point is that very serious push factors are under way in respect of working conditions. Overnight, the employment conditions of 20 workers in that section, some of whom have been there for decades, went from a five-day roster to a seven-day roster. The only day off guaranteed is Christmas Day. Their conditions have been stood on their head without any meaningful engagement whatsoever. Then, advertisements are placed for jobs to be outsourced and they are gone. It is absolutely traumatic for these workers.

I suppose the issue revolves around what the Minister can do. In some ways, he is the Minister who has arrived after the product has been sold and our national airline hived off. I presume, however, that, in the context of the guarantees given by his predecessor to the House - and the utter failure of Aer Lingus to honour them - he has a role to play in the context of intervening urgently with IAG to stop it undermining and pushing workers out of decent jobs and working conditions and to stop outsourcing jobs to outside the country.

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