New airport authority glitch

THE composition of the new Shannon Airport Authority is up in the air, with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions backing the abolition of the board in a row over ministerial halving of worker representation.
Two weeks ago, The Clare Champion was first to reveal that Transport Minister Noel Dempsey had sent out a directive to the chairmen of the three State airport authorities cutting back on numbers to be seated around the boardroom table.

In the case of Shannon, the minister indicated that he would be reducing his own nominees by two and directed that the number of worker representatives should be reduced to two. When the airport authorities were formed in 2004, following the break-up Aer Rianta, SIPTU at Shannon negotiated an exceptional deal, with unions to elect four local Shannon directors and a further SIPTU representative from Dublin accepted to hold a watching brief.
In the inaugural Shannon Authority, which completed its five-year term at its final meeting last Friday, the IMPACT middle management union held one seat while SIPTU had three local Shannon Aviation Branch seats plus the Dublin Aviation Branch seat, which had been vacant since the retirement of nominee Paul Dagger.
The Department of Transport press office has confirmed that the new Shannon Airport Authority is due to take office from September 16 but while the minister’s nominees are expected to be named in the next week, Shannon unions confirmed this week that “there have been no moves to elect or appoint worker directors and there will not be any before the new Shannon Authority takes over”.
In a union backlash against the minister’s cull of worker directors, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has come out in support of a call for the Shannon and Cork airport boards to be abolished.
The initiative calling for the two boards to be dissolved came from SIPTU but has now been endorsed by Congress, which discussed the worker representation on the boards when the airports issue was on the agenda at the ICTU meeting two weeks ago.
The call for the abolition of the Shannon and Cork boards was a direct response to the claim by airport management that the boards are costing €2.5 million a year. Besides contending that the stripping away of four director positions, which carry annual fees of €10,600, is a paltry saving, the unions are also reflecting a firm SIPTU view that the Shannon and Cork boards are “nothing but talking shops”.
That view was voiced when the new structures for the airports came into operation. Then, the SIPTU worker director on the Dublin Airport Authority, Dermot O’Loughlin, resigned his seat in protest over the handling of the Ryanair deal at Shannon. Based on his short period on the Dublin Airport Authority, he formed the view that the Dublin board regarded the Shannon and Cork boards as subordinates with no real power.
The intervening five years, which eventually saw Minister Dempsey defer the possibility of Shannon autonomy until 2011 at the earliest, has not changed the SIPTU view. That view was reiterated in the union’s submission to the ICTU meeting of two weeks ago.
Concern about the decision making power at Shannon, which has rekindled long-standing trade union disquiet dating back to the Aer Rianta era, was reflected in the July interim report of the Mid West Task Force. In setting out “critical requirements” for Shannon Airport growth, the report stated, “Pending full separation from the Dublin Airport Authority, Shannon Airport needs to operate with increased executive autonomy to maximize its potential and its development impact on the region”.
Meanwhile, Shannon union activists now expect that the latest protracted talks on further streamlining and job cuts at the State airports will go to the Labour Court within the next three weeks. Talks going on since February on the DAA proposals to cut 350 jobs overall have been at bogged down for some time. Union sources say that “redeployment is the big sticking point” and revolves around how the workload is going to be distributed over remaining staff after the departures.
“At Shannon this hardly arises because so many staff have departed that there is precious little room for manoeuvre,” a union source said. Any issues that did arise have already been dealt with in conciliation talks at Shannon.
Unions have made no arrangements for the election of worker representatives onto the new Shannon Airport Authority and no moves will be taking place until after the Dáil resumes next week, according to union officers.