The corrosive culture of entitlement fuelling bus drivers’ strike

UP TO 400,000 people trudged through rain to work in the capital this week, or gritted teeth in gridlocked traffic. Why? Because Dublin Bus workers are using their plight as a bargaining tool for more pay. The drivers, who are already paid more than many of their passengers, rejected an 8.25% pay rise. They want a whopping 21%, comprising 15% over the next three years, plus the 6% they missed out on in 2008.

Are they justified in turning their noses up at a hike most people would be delighted with, one that doesn’t even include concessions on productivity?

Incredibly, the idea of doing a bit extra to justify getting your pay hiked by over a fifth doesn’t seem to be on the agenda.

In fairness, Dublin Bus unions say they have already accepted cutbacks and work-practice changes that helped to turn around the company.

Annual losses became profits of €11.6m and €10.2m in the last two years. But that was only after State subventions, which, though reduced, still amount to almost €100m a year.

What do they think will happen to the ‘turnaround’ if the €50m-plus cost of this pay demand is met? The privatesector workers whose pay was cut since 2008 will have to pick up the tab through increased fares or extra State spending.

They may well have to do so anyway to meet the €30m cost of the 8.25% pay rise proposed by the Labour Court.

This is why unions disingenuously tried to turn the debate around to one on State subvention of public transport rather than their own pay.

In a ‘fact sheet’, they point to the how State support for Dublin Bus has fallen by 32.6% since 2008. That’s true – as did spending on practically everything because Ireland almost went bust.

WHAT they really mean is they want us to bankroll these pay rises through fare rises or more subvention. Ultimately, the money would come from pockets that have already been picked too many times through pay cuts and tax hikes.

The back-dated pay claim is from 2008, during our worst financial crisis. Prices plummeted by 4.5% the following year, and private-sector wages followed suit. Few privatesector workers could imagine claiming the cuts they endured, let alone foregone rises, from that unprecedented period.

Can you imagine saying to your boss: ‘Remember the financial crisis eight years ago when we nearly went bust and the country was going to hell in a hand-basket? Well, I never got my pay increases then – and I want them now! And if you don’t give them to me I’m going to punish the people who own this company until you do.’

Going on strike is a luxury few private-sector staff would contemplate. Would Google shut down for two days because its staff want a pay hike twice as big as their peers in other companies? This isn’t 1913, the year of the great transport worker Lockout when strikes were justified as the only way to extract decent pay from exploitative capitalist bosses.

It’s 2016. We have a workerfriendly Labour Court whose role undermines the justifica- tion for strikes, especially when so many suffer as a result. Alas, transport strikes are all too tempting because the public can be pummelled until the Government caves in and hands over our money.

The withdrawal of such vital services is just part of a charade that’s become a routine part of an irresponsible, uncaring negotiation strategy. In the end, it will probably play out like the Luas strikes where great public inconvenience and initially outrageous pay demands were used as ploys in their long-running, tactical game.

The Dublin Bus dispute will probably be resolved eventually, with some productivity concessions and a largish pay hike that falls short of what was originally demanded.

In the meantime, with more and longer strikes looming, it’s the public pawns in this game who suffer. This is a public who have endured worse hits from austerity than the bus drivers, through wage cuts, job losses and tax increases.

After years of falling wages, private-sector pay went up by an average of 1.5% in the past year. There’s also light at the end of the tunnel as the Government begins to roll back the most brutal tax measures such as USC, the real sledgehammer of austerity.

However, if bus drivers and other public-sector workers succeed in their pay demands, they could well scupper all this. Every concession eats into the ‘fiscal space’ we can use for tax cuts and spending increases on things such as houses and hospital services. Yet the Garda Representative Association is also to ballot on action to get money cut from members’ pay since 2008 – potentially costing us around €100m in total.

The reason that bill is so high is that gardaí are already paid an average €1,304 a week. Other public-sector demands are starting to snowball. Closely watching the bus dispute are workers in Iarnód Éireann and Bus Éireann, not to mention teachers, who are also about to ballot on industrial action.

AN ARTICULATE and vocal bunch, teachers have done a great job in publicising their case for more money (usually by omitting to mention the many allowances and extras that beef up their salaries). Yet education also managed to record the highest average public-sector hourly earnings in the past year – of €37.89, beating gardaí on €30.52.

The private sector average is €20.10 per hour. Why the enormous gap in pay?

Because in the private sector you have to justify pay with productivity. You must actually earn far more than your pay to cover the cost of employment such as job taxes, office space, communications bills, etc.

In ‘the real world’ that’s hard enough to do even for average sector wages of €645 a week, let alone the €915 the public sector get.

In the public sector, productivity is hard to measure. So instead you get pay rises through strong unions who bully the public with threats to withdraw vital services until politicians cave in.

Politicians usually cave eventually as the money isn’t theirs and they’re on public-sector-style pay and pensions themselves anyway.

So to recap: Dublin bus drivers are already paid more than the private sector. They’ve been offered a pay increase of 8.25%, but they want 21%. And in order to get it they are going to make less wellpaid workers suffer. Taxpayers, will pick up the tab, either through increased fares or subventions. And the bus strike will encourage other public-sector unions to demand pay hikes too, costing us hundreds of millions more and potentially dashing hopes of tax cuts to help unravel years of austerity.

Incredibly, the drivers think the public who they’ve left walking in the rain are on their side. What planet are they on?

One called Planet Privilege, a world of endless plenty, located in a distant galaxy. It’s many light years away from Planet Private Sector, a much harsher environment whose inhabitants have to work a lot harder to survive. Ireland is also far away from the businessfriendly meritocracy that Enda Kenny often claims.

We are business-friendly all right – to the world’s richest multinationals we help to avoid paying their fair share of corporate tax around the world.

And we use that money we get from them to pay social welfare, public-sector pay and politicians perks that are among the highest anywhere. Those lucky enough to work in the taxavoiding multinationals will also do well. But at the bottom of the heap are the privatesector workers who are once more being punished and pillaged by the Dublin Bus strike.