A FORMER baggage handler with Ryanair has voted for industrial action over the company's decision to dismiss him. In what was probably the smallest ballot ever held by Ireland's largest union. Mr Ray Healy cast his vote yesterday morning and the result will now go to SIPTU's executive to receive full union sanction.
It is likely to be a couple of weeks before Mr Healy mounts his picket, on which he will be joined by SIPTU officials at Dublin Airport. In the meantime, the union will be hoping that the company reconsiders its decision to reject a Labour Court decision that Mr Healy should be reinstated.
Mr Healy was dismissed last June and the Labour Court recommended his reinstatement, on a probationary basis, in December. Since then Ryanair has rejected approaches from SIPTU to discuss the issue.
Mr Paul O'Sullivan, secretary of the union's aviation branch, says SIPTU has recently recruited a number of Ryanair cabin crew and ground staff. He says: "We would hope the company would honour the Labour Court decision, reinstate the individual concerned and give him the right to trade union membership recognised under the Constitution."
In 1988, the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland, which later merged with the ITGWU to found SIPTU, received a Labour Court judgment which recommended that Ryanair recognise it as a trade union. That recommendation was rejected by the company.
Last November, Ryanair gave its workforce a 10 per cent increase, which was shortly after a number of its staff joined SIPTU. The company says it is not anti union but prefers more informal and direct communication with its 700 employees, 500 of whom work in Ireland.