LIKE thousands of workers before them, Aer Lingus pilots are learning that ing a pay battle at arbitration and receiving more money are very different things.

They are angry. War plans are advanced. Helplines for members, advice on social welfare, even travel arrangements on other airlines for members stranded by the strike, have been organised by the Irish Airline Pilots' Association (IALPA).

On the company side extra aircraft have been leased and emergency schedules organised. Union and management representatives attending today's Labour Court hearing will be rather like those statesmen in 1914 who found it was too late to cry "Peace!" once mobilisation orders had been issued.

The problem is that this dispute is not about when, but whether the 17 per cent tribunal award will be paid to pilots.

The company wants to set the Pilot Pay Review Tribunal findings aside and enter direct talks with the pilots-on pay, without preconditions IALPA says that setting aside the tribunal findings is a precondition in itself. Any talks must be about implementation of the award. Of course, the company responds that this, too, is a precondition and so the argument goes, round and round.

It is ironic that a tribunal set up to defuse disputes over pay should have created such a confrontation.

Established after the last IALPA strike in 1985 it had two IALPA nominees, two Aer Lingus nominees and the chairman was Mr Hugh Geoghegan SC. When he was subsequently appointed to the High Court another barrister, Mr Roddy Horan, took over. Mr Horan had acted for Aer Lingus in a number of cases.

IT was after Mr Horan's appointment that the company expressed its first reservations about the way in which the review was moving. He wanted to consider an across the board pay rise. When the company nominees balked at the idea, relations between the company and the tribunal became strained.

At one stage Mr Horan wrote to the company saying: "Aer Lingus has sought to frustrate the operation of the tribunal" in relation to IALPA representations on pay.

Subsequently, Aer Lingus agreed reluctantly to the new terms of reference, on the basis that the arbitration was nonbinding, that the company could plead inability to pay and that there would be no knock-on pay effects for the 5,000 other employees.

IALPA says that if the company had problems about honouring such a pay award it should have withdrawn from the process in 1993 or 1994, rather than agree to new terms of reference.

Talks on pay only began last February but the gap between the tribunal majority and the minority composed of Aer Lingus' nominees seems to have widened. The company feels that much of the data it presented, including a report from Coopers and Lybrand which found significant errors in the IALPA statistics, were not given adequate consideration.

Far from accepting the majority report, Aer Lingus representatives submitted their own minority report, which was largely devoted to discrediting the majority findings. The minority report contains no offer on pay, but does highlight the tribunal's failure to provide data justifying the 17 per cent award.

For their part, having won the award, the pilots are in no mood to start pay talks all over again.

Since talks broke down the company has warned of follow-on claims from its other employees. Many observers see this as a serious strategic error. The tribunal pay review had been intended to "ring fence" the pilot's pay award.

By stressing the potential knock-on effects the company itself has provided ammunition for other unions.

While pilots can claim they are paid less than their European counterparts, they are the elite of Aer Lingus. Many SIPTU members earn less than £7,500 a year, compared with £22,000 to £62,000 for pilots.

SIPTU and the other unions have an ambiguous attitude to IALPA. One former union negotiator at the airline describes the association as an "officers' club."

If IALPA wins its award, the pressure on the other unions to take strike action in pursuit of similar increases will become irresistible. On the other hand, if IALPA is defeated, then it will represent a setback for the aspirations of others as well.

What is not disputed is that a strike will be extremely damaging for all concerned. That is the strongest argument the Labour Court will have this morning as it tries to pull people back from the brink.