Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It is possible that corporations made profits in excess of €300 billion in this State last year.

Unfortunately, working people did not fare as well. Yes, most workers got pay increases but the majority of those pay increases did not match the rate of inflation and therefore were de facto pay cuts. Maybe this goes some way to explaining why a majority of people who expressed a view when polled by RedC last week supported the pilots. A group of workers seeking a pay increase from a greedy company making massive profits is something a lot of people can identify with. Aer Lingus made profits of €225 million last year. Its parent company, IAG. made an eye-watering €3.5 billion. Executive pay at Aer Lingus has increased by 66% since 2019 and only yesterday, it was announced that Aer Lingus chief executive officer, Lynne Embleton, had received a €269,000 share bonus just last week. Meanwhile, the pilots have not had a pay increase in five years.

This is the largest industrial dispute seen in this State in the 2020s. It is the biggest clash between the interests of capital and the interests of labour this decade. It is in the interests of every working person that the pilots win their claim. Of course, we have had an orchestra of outrage led by the usual suspects from the capitalist establishment. Aer Lingus said the pilots’ stand was "insidious". Aer Lingus’s great rival, Michael O’Leary, called it "industrial blackmail". The unshockable Tánaiste said it was "shocking". The Taoiseach himself opted for the phrase "utterly reprehensible". Never once did the Taoiseach recognise his own responsibility for the current state of affairs. When Aer Lingus was privatised between 2006 and 2015 who were the parties in power? First, it was Fianna Fáil and the Green Party and then it was Fine Gael and, to its shame, the Labour Party. By selling off the national airline to a corporation, it was the likes of the Taoiseach and his party that opened the door to a scenario where Aer Lingus could quadruple its profits in a year, while holding down wages by more than 20% over five years. The Taoiseach needs to own his own mistake here.

It is back to the Labour Court tomorrow. The Labour Court is no friend of working people in my book. If the pilots can get a cost-of-living increase there, I say good luck to them but I have my doubts. If the pilots are left by Aer Lingus with no choice but to escalate their action, they will continue to have my support. Escalation, if it is necessary, will be greeted in the capitalist press with howls of horror but escalation can serve to bring the dispute to a head more quickly and increase the chance of a settlement that does justice to the pilots' claim, which, as I said, is in the interests of all working people.

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