RAIL STAFF UNDER PRESSURE
WORKER SAY THEY’RE BEING SQUEEZED BY MANAGEMENT & PUBLIC
“HOW dare I earn a decent wage,” says train driver Patrick Sheerin outside MacDiarmada Station last week.
“When I read in certain media outlets that we only push a few buttons...I seem to be one of the best paid train drivers in the whole of Europe but it’s far from it,” he adds, clearly frustrated.
Patrick was on the picket line as part of the ongoing rail dispute over pay. Today’s planned strike was cancelled pending a ballot of members on a Labour Court Recommendation.
Patrick was joined by fellow train driver Padraig O’Gara, ticket inspector Declan Doherty and clerical worker Katherine McDonagh.
They were all taking turns to man the picket line outside the deserted station and were more than happy to talk to The Sligo Champion.
Patrick has been a train driver in Sligo for the last 25 years. Padraig for the last 14 years. Both have seen their job become “thankless” in the last decade since the recession, between cuts to Government funding, cuts to staff and pressure from the travelling public.
“Another amazing thing is that we’re meant to be on ¤62,000 a year. I keep reading this and it’s a fallacy, completely,” says Patrick. “Most of us are on 48 hour contracts, we work every second weekend, going to Dublin and back in the same day.
“We spend over a year training in Dublin and then spend 500 hours out learning with a driver, getting the knowledge of the track,” he says.
“There’s more and more pressure on us. Not just from our company - they’re getting pressure from the Government to extract more (productivity) from staff but there’s a lot of pressure from the public as well,” he says.
Pressure from the public is mounting through social media: “If something happens on the track or around a station, it’s often got to management before staff themselves even know about it,” says Patrick.
“It’s so easy on social media to spit your vitriol or your hate towards somebody. But when people actually physically come up and talk to you it’s amazing how they understand,” he says.
“It’s also forgotten that we also pay taxes.
And as for this gold-plated pension- someone on the dole gets a bigger pension than I will. That’s something we’re also fighting for, a respectable pension,” he adds.
Both train drivers believe the dispute should never have gone as far as industrial action.
“The unions had brokered a deal and at the eleventh hour the CEO makes a phone call at the end to call the whole lot off. It shouldn’t have come to that,” says Padraig.