David McWilliams: We may be entering a new world of industrial turmoil after years of relative peace
Mark Tighe, president of the Irish Airline Pilots' Association , with union vice-presidents Owen Kelly and Daniel Langan after presenting legal notice of industrial action to Aer Lingus headquarters at Dublin Airport. Photograph: Alan BetsonWith both the Aer Lingus pilots and the management spinning the story, it’s difficult to know who is really at fault or see the sweet spot for the resolution.
But there is another layer to the row and it is that Aer Lingus made nearly a quarter of a billion euro profit last year. This money goes to shareholders, and profits also incentivise management who get a slice of this profit pie. The pilots, particularly the senior ones who consider themselves as not just workers but stakeholders in a going concern, see management reap the upside of the increased profits and they don’t like it.
The cleanest indicator of the returns to owners of capital is the global stock market. If stocks are going up, shareholders are getting rich. In the United States, in June the S&P 500 index reached 5,277.51, rBack home, the Irish Stock Exchange has seen substantial growth. In the six months to June 2024, the Iseq index. Corporate profits in Ireland have soared, providing a solid foundation for stock market gains. Irish profits reached €79.
Starting in the US, it’s no secret that real wage growth was at best anaemic in the decade that followed the 2008 crisis. We see a similar picture in both Ireland and the UK. Average wage growth has lagged behind average productivity growth since 1999 across 52 high-income countries – according to a Social transfers try to level the field. Without these transfers, the Irish at-risk-of-poverty rate would have been 38.
Looking ahead, reasonably well-off pilots are unlikely standard bearers for the downtrodden, but they are the Donnybrook Fair battalion of an Aldi revolution, where the people who worry about the cost of their weekly shop are motivated to question why they aren’t benefiting from our roaring economy. For social peace, wages will have to rise.
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