To my mind the early cancellation/rescheduling of the EI flights on 14th is a sign that they are unwilling to talk to SIPTU in order to avert this disruption.
Someone asked earlier about who funds the pension....the answer is employees and employers. No smoke and mirrors there.
However in the case of the IASS the problem has been known about for many years, but EI still make their staff pay into this fund. Most of the staff just want to stop throwing money into an empty pit. But their contract with EI stipulates that they must pay into the IASS. This is why the staff are unhappy with EI (I'm not sure if the same holds for the DAA staff)
The unions/mgmt actually agreed a proposal a year ago but was it was delayed by the trustee's. Since that time the situation has worsened so the unions are asking for an extra E50M between both companies to plug the gap to enable employees to get most of their entitlement and then be able to start paying into a new pension for each company. (BTW EI has over 1 Billion Euro in new cash reserves, with less than E350M of that ringfenced for aircraft leasing and purchases)
Meanwhile every month every member of the pension is getting deducted salary that they may never see again.
On the issue of the statement by EI of with-holding 'productivity payments'.....these payments are a once off bonus (less than E6.5m for 2014) given to staff in return for the E97m yearly savings generated as part of the Greenfield plan. So EI refusing to honour their own agreement shows the lack of integrity that prevails among EI senior mgmt.
Personally I do not feel this work stoppage will aid the workers, the deficit will still be there and it will only antagonise the travelling public. However looking at public statements I feel that EI senior Mgmt do not really want to avert this action. I recognise that extra payments are not seen as viable by the EI CEO or the DAA mgmt. But if I was a CEO with 1 Billion in the bank...and I was told I could give E50M to be finally rid of this pension issue (coupled with a pay freeze for 3 years) I would be jumping at that chance.