SR Technics a viable business, say unions

TRANSPORT COMMITTEE:MORE THAN half the capacity of aircraft maintenance company SR Technics' order book for 2009 was sold before it announced it was to close, making 1,135 employees redundant at Dublin airport.

That is the position of the group of unions representing SR Technics employees, who claimed yesterday it was at least breaking even, with its order book in better shape than 12 months previously.

Addressing the Oireachtas Committee on Transport William Quigley of Unite, who is chairman of the union forum at SR Technics, said some units at the company had already sold more then 80 per cent of their capacity for the coming year. He also said a large volume of work had been booked over the coming five years.

Mr Quigley said while costs were cheaper in lower-wage economies, the costs in SR Technics’s other base, Zurich, Switzerland, were “at least as high” – but there was no downsizing.

Mr Quigley maintained that the company made a decision some time ago to close the Dublin facility, and insisted it switched profitable business from Dublin to Zurich while Dublin “was forced to execute loss-making contracts”.

Dublin’s difficulty centred on a directive that all individual contracts must be profitable, he said. “This forced us to bid for business at seven per cent above what the market would bear and we were on average 15 to 20 per cent too expensive in western Europe.”

Despite this, the unions maintained that business was still coming to the facility which “operated at break-even or slightly better with positive cash flow.”

Mr Quigley said it was for the Government to appoint a manager to assess the viability of the Dublin base and “explore every avenue”.