SIPTU says it is prepared to consider deferring escalation of the strike by Ryanair baggage handlers at Dublin airport, if the company agrees to attend a Labour Court hearing on Friday.
The court has called both sides to a hearing under section 20 of the Industrial Relations Act, which allows it to intervene in the public interest. However, there are no penalties on companies which decline to attend and Ryanair has not yet decided if it will attend Friday's meeting.
Meanwhile, representatives of all the political parties in the Dail, except the Progressive Democrats, sent representatives to a meeting called by the Ryanair strikers support committee at Dublin Airport yesterday evening.
An MEP, 12 TDs, one senator and two councillors were among those who turned up to pledge their support, not to mention candidates in the forthcoming Dublin North by-election. Three other TDs, including the Minister for Marine, Dr Woods, sent their apologies.
Some public representatives castigated Ryanair in even stronger terms than SIPTU. Several Fianna Fail TDs welcomed the suggestion that employers should be licensed in the same way as trade unions. SIPTU official Mr Paul O'Sullivan also said he saw no reason why businesses granted the protection of public liability, should not be obliged by the Companies Act to behave responsibly towards their employees.
Fianna Fail TD Mr Martin Brady, who is a former president of the Telephone Officers Union, assured the strikers that, "anybody who attempts to break the trade union movement, I will fight 'til the blood runs down my face".
"In a situation like this, solidarity is the name of the game," he said.
The Fine Gael spokeswoman on enterprise, trade and employment, Mrs Nora Owen, described the Ryanair dispute as "a test of what was negotiated in Partnership 2000, whether it is going to work and whether a voluntary code is the way to proceed."
Her Labour counterpart, Mr Tommy Broughan, is already drafting a Private Members' Bill proposing mandatory union recognition and he called on other public representatives present to support it. The Democratic Left leader, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said they were all there to support the constitutional right of people to be members of a trade union. Ryanair was one of a number of firms trying to undermine that right.
Green Party TD, Mr Trevor Sargent, criticised the new Amsterdam Treaty for not including provisions for union recognition.