Reduced fees for board members

ALTHOUGH SIPTU is to be the main loser in terms of representation on the new Shannon Airport Authority, some ministerial appointees are to be losers in another respect by serving without receiving fees.

Shannon trade unions have yet to sort out who, if any, will be taking up the two places on the new authority, which carry yearly fees of €12,600.
As part of the cost-cutting streamlining of the airport authorities ordered by Transport Minister, Noel Dempsey last August, official staff representation has been halved on the airport board. In general union resistance to the cuts, SIPTU called for the abolition of the Shannon and Cork boards as “superfluous talking shops” because, with independence postponed to 2011 at the earliest, both airport authorities remain subordinate to the Dublin Airport Authority, more than five years after the break-up of Aer Rianta. While the trade union movement held out for a restoration of worker representation up to the collapse of the pre-budget national understanding talks, Minister Dempsey has remained unmoved. In a Dáil reply to Clare Deputy Pat Breen last week, the minister re-affirmed that unions have been offered two seats on the Shannon Authority. “ICTU have yet to nominate individuals to fill these positions,” he said.
How the two Shannon seats are to be shared out has now to be thrashed out by staff unions. In the inaugural Shannon Airport Authority, SIPTU elected three worker directors, with members of the white-collar union IMPACT electing longtime airport activist Joe Buckley to represent them.
The slashing back of worker-director seats to two is now a poser for the unions and is going to weaken the influence of SIPTU, whatever the outcome. Union officers now say that instead of separate elections by each trade union, a single ballot may be an option. In that case, however, it is acknowledged that SIPTU would have a marked advantage. Although its membership ranks have been substantially pruned back in the rationalisation programme, which cut more than 200 airport jobs, SIPTU would command the biggest voting power. However, to accommodate other unions, SIPTU could possibly agree to elect just one worker-director to act beside the nominee of a sister union.
“One way or the other, SIPTU will be reduced to either two or one seat instead of the three who served on the first authority,” a union officer agreed. On that inaugural Shannon authority, SIPTU also managed to negotiate representation by an additional SIPTU nominee from the Dublin Civil Aviation Branch who held a watching brief. That has also gone in the new set-up.
Depending on consultations with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the union group within the State airports, the unions will now have to decide on how worker representations on the Shannon and Cork bodies will be decided and how elections will be conducted.
Whatever about the savings that will be made by reducing the number of worker directors, other savings have emerged in a listing of appointees to State boards released by Minister Dempsey in response to a Dáil question from Deputy Breen.
Of the minister’s nominees to the Shannon board, two will not be in receipt of the yearly fees. One of these is Ray Gray, the finance supremo at the Dublin Airport Authority appointed as part of the co-ordination between airport boards through over-lapping representation. The second is Patrick Blaney, who served on the previous Shannon authority.
While the new chairman of the Shannon authority, Shannon Westpark developer, Brian O’Connell, is to receive €21,600 in that role, he will not be receiving any fees for his membership of the Dublin Airport Authority.
Nominees of Minister Dempsey, who will receive the €12,600 annual fees, are: Shannon Development chief executive, Dr Vincent Cunnane and the re-elected Olivia Loughnane, who is in an influential role at Shannon Development as manager of the on-going Mid-West Task Force. Receiving similar fees will be Mary Fitzgerald of the Woodlands House Hotel, Adare and Dromoland Castle managing director, Mark Nolan.
The only consolation for Shannon Airport trade unions is that earlier this year, a skillfully co-coordinated vote won representation on the parent Dublin Airport Authority for Tommy Guilfoyle of the TEEU craft union. He took over a seat held by SIPTU Shannon since the inception of the worker-director concept.