Speaking to RTE today, The Chief Executive of the Labour Relations Commission, Kieran Mulvey has said the Croke Park Agreement may have to be revisited and the Aer Lingus dispute is the most complex he has ever been involved in.
Speaking on RTE's Saturday with Claire Byrne, Mr Mulvey said that does not necessarily mean that Croke Park would not last until June 2014. However, the initiative by the Government in the recent month and the response of the unions probably indicates that the agreement will be revisited. Previously we posted that Kieran Mulvey spoke out against revisiting the agreement without using the proper channels provided for in the agreement.
Today he has said there will be no Croke Park two but expects it to be revitalised to maybe transform it into a more deliberate agreement over the next year.
Mr Mulvey said other governments like Greece, Spain and Portugal would love to have a Croke Park agreement because the State has engaged with its own employees not only on pay and cost issues but why we need to change to meet the new demands of the modern world. He further added that Croke Park is a reform programme, to turn the engine of State around to meet the demands of the 21st century.
Mr Mulvey also commented on the Aer Lingus pension dispute. He said there is an unbridgeable gap between the parties involved in the dispute over a €750m deficit in a pension scheme at Aer Lingus and the Dublin Airport Authority. He added Aer Lingus was unwilling to refer the matter to the Labour Court for a number of reasons and on that basis the talks were suspended indefinitely on Thursday.
He said the prospect of industrial action, particularly at Aer Lingus, is shaping up at the moment but that a lot of water will flow under the bridge before that actually happens, and that the dispute has to be resolved around the negotiating table and the fact that the parties walked away on Thursday did not mean the end.
Mr Mulvey also said there are differing opinions about whether a deal was concluded between the DAA and unions and he will have to call the parties back maybe next week to establish that. He said it is one of the most complex disputes he has ever been involved in.
Mr Mulvey said the real issue is that staff in Aer Lingus and the DAA has over many years been contributing to a scheme with benefits that would not match the contribution – 11% benefit. He said there was a clear lack of foresight to fund the potential benefits that people had a strong, moral and reasonable expectation of and remedial action should have been taken years ago.
These are two of the most topical issues in IR at the moment so expect them to dominate further media coverage in the coming weeks and months.
