Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Aer Lingus Meeting/Strike

Heres another reason to sell off Aer Lingus. Tomorrow 1800 SIPTU workers will go to a meeting between 9:45am and 11:00am. As a result flights will be disrupted and baggage will not be unloaded. They are being generous and will allow passengers on arriving planes to disembark but thats pretty much it. Everyone else will have to wait for the lads to finish their chats.

Why are they holding a meeting? They need to discuss their response to the Governments offer of a €250 million compensation package if the airline is privatized. Note they aren't making these people redundant. They aren't closing the airline. They just to sell it to the private sector.

Why do the workers need compensation? Well for starters if they all took an hour and 15 minutes off to have a moan about how unfair their lives are when working for a private company they would be fire the lot of them.

Would it have killed them to hold several smaller meetings and allow the airport to stay open? Would it have ruined their case if they met after working hours? To me it appears they are just throwing their weight around to bully the government into giving them more money.

At this rate the taxpayer will be lucky to get €50 million for the whole airline never mind €250 million.

No comments: