Cabin crew staff at Aer Lingus have voted overwhelmingly to accept the carrier's controversial €97 million cost-saving plan after rejecting it earlier this month.
In a statement, Impact said the result of the ballot was 92 per cent in favour of the proposals, with 8 per cent against, following clarifications obtained at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) last week
"It is significant that this result was achieved through a joint negotiating process. Furthermore, the agreement was achieved without any recourse to, or threat of, industrial action at any stage of the negotiations," the union said, noting extensive bilateral talks at the LRC "which enabled the branch to put the cost saving proposals of February 15th to another ballot".
The union said the cabin crew branch committee is "very pleased with the outcome" and that the committee expressed the hope it would foster a new relationship with management based on mutual respect.
Aer Lingus this evening expressed appreciation for the "overwhelming result" of a second ballot of Impact cabin crew staff.
In its statement, the carrier said the result was a "major step" toward delivering savings from cabin crew under its cost reduction programme. Aer Lingus said it would now work with the union to implement productivity targets.
Management’s plan involves pay cuts, voluntary redundancies and changes to work practices.
Following the recent ballot defeat, Aer Lingus announced that it would make all 1,200 cabin crew redundant and rehire most on inferior terms and conditions. However, it said 230 would be made compulsorily redundant and that they would receive only their statutory entitlements.
The carrier had said that if the plan to make the 230 cabin crew compulsorily redundant went ahead, the staff concerned would receive only their statutory entitlements.
However, Impact said that following discussions at the LRC, its cabin crew negotiating team now had “deeper clarification in a number of areas”.
Four other groups at the airline have voted to accept the cost-saving programme. Aer Lingus director of human resources, Michael Grealy, had said Aer Lingus planned to proceed with restructuring agreements already accepted by the four other unions.