Serviceair seeks to avert airport strike with new offer

Servisair will put fresh proposals to 300 of its employees at Dublin and Cork airports this morning, to try to halt a four-day strike due to begin today. The company supplies cargo, courier and ground-handling services.

Servisair is stressing, however, that the proposals will be within the same financial parameters as those recommended by the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) last summer. The workers have rejected those proposals.

The dispute has been simmering since November 1998.

If the strike goes ahead it will not affect Aer Lingus and RyanAir, who provide their own ground services. An Aer Rianta spokeswoman said Servisair had assured them that contingency plans meant the dispute would not cause any disruption at the two airports.

Among the LRC's recommendations last year were an increase in the fixed weekly supplement from £40 to £47, and improved premiums for weekend and early and late starts. The supplement is on top of the basic wage, which begins at about £220 a week.

A subsequent hearing at the Labour Court did not recommend any improvements on the deal.

As strike notice runs out this morning, the company says it has always accepted the LRC recommendations and presumes SIPTU - the union representing the workers - "is still operating within the parameters of Partnership 2000". The company "will still respect those parameters". The spokesman added that Servisair was prepared to accept fully the LRC recommendations and increase supplementary payments to workers.

However, Ms Carmel Hogan, secretary of SIPTU's civil aviation branch, said last night the union planned to withdraw labour this morning pending analysis of the proposals.

Ms Hogan said: "We want the emphasis to be on shift pay. Shift payments are guaranteed if you work weekends or if you start or finish early. We want an increase in the basic shift payment and we want it to be retrospective.

"We had a meeting for over three hours with Servisair management in which they said they would redraw their proposals. But as they say the offer is within the same financial parameters, it is up for question what it can contain."

When it was put to Ms Hogan that this would be beyond the LRC recommendations, she said: "It was the company who wanted to put new proposals to us, they knew we were meeting in the afternoon, it is up to them."

Ms Hogan said neither the unions nor the company had raised the prospect of the company flying in workers from elsewhere to handle its operations in the Republic.

Speculation on such a possibility had arisen on Wednesday after the company announced it had "contingency plans" in the event of a strike.

Servisair employs between 400 and 500 people on a seasonal basis at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports. Worldwide it operates in 72 airports in 10 countries.