The Labour Court recommended that the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union accept Aer Lingus’s position in a pay-scale dispute involving seven workers. The recommendation was signed on 29 September 2014.
The union argued that the workers had signed Team Member contracts under duress and should receive the previously agreed 15-point pay scale, including back pay and other lost entitlements. Aer Lingus said it had introduced a shorter scale during a company-wide pay freeze and that the workers were not earning less than colleagues on the legacy scale.
The Court found that the workers had been placed on the Team Member scales before agreement on them was reached. It also considered the time that had passed and the eventual agreement on new scales aligned with those then applied to the workers. It recommended that the union accept Aer Lingus’s position in its letter of 29 January 2014, with a once-off €10,000 payment for each worker for accepting the scales on the terms in that letter. The recommendation was made for these workers’ circumstances and was not intended to set a precedent.