Shannon Airport staff to be balloted on industrial action

STAFF in Shannon Airport are set to be balloted on industrial action, up to and including walkouts.

It comes as the Shannon Group, the base’s parent firm, told workers it was proceeding with a 20% pay cut.

Trade union Siptu says it represents the majority of the staff at Limerick’s local airport.

Most of these have already had their working hours reduced due to the fall-off in passenger traffic due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

Ridership was down 96% year-on-year between April and June, and the reintroduction of some Ryanair services in July has failed to make a huge difference, with passenger traffic still down 87% year-on-year.

Shannon Group human resources director Chris O’Donovan said the deepening aviation crisis is the context for the temporary pay reductions.

In a letter to the trade union group, he urged them to engage as soon as possible around potential voluntary redundancies.

Siptu for its part has insisted it will not accept any cut to the hourly rate of pay for its members.

The ballot is expected to take a number of weeks. 

Shannon Group has joined with other aviation companies in calling for the immediate implementation of the Taskforce for Aviation Recovery, which included a call for a stimulus package regional airports to encourage the rebuilding of traffic. 

In a statement, Mary Considine, the chief executive of the Shannon Group said: "We acknowledge the very difficult situation that our staff face arising from the collapse in traffic at Shannon Airport due to COVID-19. With 2020 set to account for the biggest losses in the history of aviation globally and predictions that the sector will not recover for up to four years, we were left with no option but to put what are difficult solutions on the table for staff to sustain the airport through this unprecedented period and prime it for recovery in the years ahead."

"In early July we presented a range of available options to staff, among these career breaks, reduced working hours, short time working, temporary pay cuts and a voluntary severance scheme (VSS). The terms of the VSS were clearly communicated at that time. We communicated these measures to unions and since then have put an extensive programme in place to ensure that staff were fully briefed regarding the necessity for this intervention. This ongoing engagement across the last seven weeks included written communications with staff and unions, full briefing of staff across two separate days in socially distanced town-hall meetings at the airport, telephone conversations and board meetings and calls. Our HR team has also worked exhaustively with the very large number of staff that expressed interest in the scheme to set out the specific individual outcomes for them. During that period, we sought to meet with trade unions on the VSS, but the offers were declined, the latest of these was last week," she added,

"The measures we have had to put in place are certainly not what we envisaged as we set out on what would otherwise have been a year of growth at Shannon," she concluded.