RAIL UNIONS PLAN CHRISTMAS CHAOS
Strikers set to target commuters coming home for holidays
HARDLINE rail union bosses are now threatening to target the thousands of commuters heading home to their loved ones for Christmas, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
In their push for a pay hike, the Irish Rail staff had already set out plans to down tools on crucial days for the travelling public.
These include Ireland’s World Cup qualifier against Denmark on November 14 and the big festive shopping day, December 8. But now a senior union
source has told the Mail they are prepared to ‘significantly escalate’ their actions, indicating they may grind to a halt on December 21, 22 and 23, the most important days in the year for families and close friends to get together.
The original plan was to bring chaos to the 155,000 commuters who rely on Dart, InterCity and commuter train services daily, with five separate 24-hour stoppages – on November 1, 7, 14, 23 and December 8.
But the source said: ‘If the dispute goes on towards the fifth day then the unions will come under pressure from its membership to significantly ramp up the dispute, and that could be reflected in stoppages of a longer duration, and will undoubtedly involve disruption to Christmas travel.’ They said they may be forced to ‘significantly escalate the action, including stoppages of a longer duration over the Christmas and New Year travel period’.
This could mean December 21, 22 or 23 as the stoppage times are lengthened from 24 hours to 48. The two main unions involved in the dispute, Siptu and the National Bus and Rail Union, last Thursday reentered negotiations with representatives from Irish Rail in the Workplace Relations Commission.
But the talks broke down after about 12 hours without reaching an agreement, and the unions formally announced the strikes the following day. They had won a mandate from their members in a ballot.
The NBRU represents 650 of the workers involved while Siptu represents about 1,900.
The Mail previously revealed that the two unions have a strike ‘war chest’ of about €21million. And on Monday, a union source told the paper that it would take an offer of ‘huge significance’ to call off the first of their five planned days of 24-hour stoppages.
Irish Rail has previously warned it is ‘on the brink of insolvency’ and also said the five planned days of action could potentially cost the firm more than €4.6million.
In response to the escalation threat, a spokesperson for Irish Rail said that ‘any disruption will damage the interests of customers, employees and the company’.
The workers are seeking an annual pay increase of 3.75% a year for three years, in line with the deal agreed with Dublin Bus workers.
Irish Rail said it has offered 1.75% for one year to be facilitated by measures including performance management, absenteeism management, and revisions to redeployment policy and payroll. However, the unions said a proposal of about 2.5% for one year was being discussed at last Thursday’s negotiations but that it was pulled by CEO David Franks. The company has strongly denied this.
Irish Rail has asked the unions to go to the Labour Court, but they have refused.
Dermot O’Leary, general secretary of the NBRU, last week said: ‘The Labour Court is the last resort and it should be available to the parties to bridge a gap, considerably less than the gap that is between us now.’
The union has said Irish Rail’s proposed 1.75% pay rise, with some conditions such as performance management and absenteeism management, ‘does not have the potential to contribute to a resolution of this dispute’.
It said industrial relations at the company ‘has been extremely volatile over recent years’ and the gap between them is ‘as wide as the Grand Canyon’. They also made reference to Mr Franks’s alleged role in last week’s discussions and a communication he reportedly made to staff this week about the dispute.
Comment – Page 12 emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie
Stoppages could cost firm €4.6m