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[Article] Passengers face threat of further rail chaos

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  • 11-06-2008 3:24pm
    #1
    penexpers
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,038 ✭✭✭


    Looks like there could be more fun
    TRAIN services in Cork could be severely disrupted yet again in the coming days after two drivers were removed from the payroll.


    Less than a fortnight after a week-long dispute disrupted the travel plans of 100,000 passengers, drivers at Cork’s Kent Station are once more on the brink of industrial action.

    According to a driver source, when one of the drivers turned up on Monday to operate a training shift as rostered, he was asked to drive the train to Mallow.


    “He did the trip and when he came back he was asked to drive the training shift. He asked who was responsible for the train if there was an incident when the trainee was driving. They said ‘you are’. He said ‘grand, I am not driving the train so’. He said any incident while the trainee was driving would go on his file, so unless they gave him a note excluding him from responsibility he would not drive the train. At the end of the day they took him off the payroll. He asked why and he said they could not answer him.”

    The source said another driver came in and was also asked to drive the training run. “When he was told that he would be responsible for the train while the trainee was driving he also refused and was removed from the payroll,” he said.

    The week-long dispute two weeks ago was sparked when a driver was removed from the payroll for refusing to operate a training run for which he was not rostered.

    That widened into an impasse over the terms of conditions of Cork drivers compared with the rest of the country. That dispute was only resolved with lengthy negotiations at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) under the chairmanship of Tom Pomphrett.

    Now Mr Pomphrett is being approached by the drivers to ask for his point of view on the situation.

    “We were carrying out our duties as requested. We were being flexible and co-operating, the whole lot,” said the driver. “We believe the company is trying to start a strike and we are doing everything in our power to stop it. That is why we are all still working. We now believe they are going to take a driver off the payroll everyday unless they agree to take responsibility for the train while the trainee is driving.

    “We are just playing it by ear and we are watching very closely. We know they are trying to force us outside the gate. They want more than what they got out of the Labour Relations Commission.”

    Iarnród Éireann said the two drivers were in breach of the LRC agreements by refusing to take out the training train. It said the training run involves an instructor, the trainee and the driver, and that when the trainee driver has control of the vehicle, there is dual control for the driver.

    The company rejected accusations it was trying to cause a dispute.

    http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=64745-qqqx=1.asp


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    #2
    fh041205
    Registered Users Posts: 992 ✭✭✭fh041205


    Renegade Cork driver trying to stir it up again. The country needs to let these drivers know that they can't hold the country to randsom because thay won't do their jobs. They think they're untouchable because drivers are in short supply. And with them refusing to trin new ones, well its just ridiculous.

    The only reason they're working at the moment is because the unions told them to go back to work and that they had no reason to cause the disruption. There are proper channels and ways to deal with a dispute like this and the drivers bypassed all this because apparrantly the rules don't apply to them.


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    #3
    paulm17781
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,858 ✭✭✭paulm17781


    Is the driver normally responsible for the train when training? If so this is a farce, if not that company really needs to sort itself out... or get sorted out.


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    #4
    invincibleirish
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,219 ✭✭✭invincibleirish


    IR have serious HR issues on Cork, there has to be a purge on both sides to resolve the ongoing seemingly forever disputes in Cork, wont somebody please think of the midleton!


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    #5
    fh041205
    Registered Users Posts: 992 ✭✭✭fh041205


    paulm17781 wrote: »
    Is the driver normally responsible for the train when training? If so this is a farce, if not that company really needs to sort itself out... or get sorted out.


    The unions negotiated a deal for the drivers across the country around 10 years ago and they are still working under this deal. Except that now some of these cork drivers have developed a sudden objection to it. The blame lies completely and totally in the laps of the drivers. They're trying to hold the country and the management to ransom to get themselves a better deal.


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    #6
    Chris_533976
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,082 ✭✭✭Chris_533976


    I think here you've got a combination of bullish drivers (and unions) with incompetant and idiotic management to back it up. Recipe for disaster.


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    #7
    paulm17781
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,858 ✭✭✭paulm17781


    fh041205 wrote: »
    The unions negotiated a deal for the drivers across the country around 10 years ago and they are still working under this deal. Except that now some of these cork drivers have developed a sudden objection to it. The blame lies completely and totally in the laps of the drivers. They're trying to hold the country and the management to ransom to get themselves a better deal.

    That is what I thought but I suspect the train responsibility is a new issue. Please correct me if I am wrong and this was always the case and part of the deal.


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    #8
    DWCommuter
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    IR have serious HR issues on Cork, there has to be a purge on both sides to resolve the ongoing seemingly forever disputes in Cork, wont somebody please think of the midleton

    I think here you've got a combination of bullish drivers (and unions) with incompetant and idiotic management to back it up. Recipe for disaster.

    At last people are starting to get it. I just wish more would instead of reverting to stereotypical arguments that bore people to death. I'll go now before a moderator tries to hang me for inciting a riot.


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    #9
    fh041205
    Registered Users Posts: 992 ✭✭✭fh041205


    DWCommuter wrote: »
    At last people are starting to get it. I just wish more would instead of reverting to stereotypical arguments that bore people to death. I'll go now before a moderator tries to hang me for inciting a riot.


    I don't see your point i'm afraid. The company or the unions are in no way at fault here. If the drivers deal is so bad why did they agree to it and continue to agree to it for so long. This was all caused by a handful of drivers in Cork. The others there just had to follow suit. Sure even the unions told them to go back to work and stop being fools.

    If you have more info then please share but i'm sick of people blaming 'management' when they have no reason to.


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    #10
    invincibleirish
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,219 ✭✭✭invincibleirish


    DWCommuter wrote: »
    At last people are starting to get it. I just wish more would instead of reverting to stereotypical arguments that bore people to death. I'll go now before a moderator tries to hang me for inciting a riot.

    its very easy to identify the problems, however im someone who long gave up on public transport for the Car so i can just listen via the media, the problem is of all the people who are affected by the recent Cork dispute (and thats not forgetting those who have been turning up for ghost trains on the Cobh line since the new timetable) that) who must surely be going insane at replacement buses and no services.

    I can personally testify to at least several Cobh/Rushbrooke chums who have bought a car in the last 2 months, and more will do so over the summer, for all the benefits of a Rail connection, whats the point if the reliability isnt there?.

    Moving on to Midleton, with its hopes of providing a P&R and weaning people off their cars and being a high profile project ofr the simple reason it isnt a road, who is going to get the train if the service is anything like what the Cobh-Mallow has been for the past 6 months,when you can get in your car and zip up the N25.


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    #11
    fitzyshea
    Registered Users Posts: 285 ✭✭fitzyshea


    Sack the ones who wont work and hire new ones-simple really.


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    #12
    paulm17781
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,858 ✭✭✭paulm17781


    fitzyshea wrote: »
    Sack the ones who wont work and hire new ones-simple really.

    There's something like 6 months training involved. Apparently you have to really know every part of the line. It's not like pushing a start and stop button.


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    #13
    markf909
    Closed Accounts Posts: 461 ✭✭markf909


    fh041205 wrote: »
    If you have more info then please share but i'm see of people blaming 'management' when they have no reason to.

    Irish Rail management are trying to incite this strike which is the scandalous thing about this issue.

    http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=64745-qqqx=1.asp

    Indeed, it seems that it is management, not new drivers who need the training most.


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    #14
    Dexterm99
    Registered Users Posts: 330 ✭✭Dexterm99


    Do you believe that Ireland would be better off without the rail union and all other Irish transport unions?

    Vote here:
    http://www.gripes.ie

    Dexterm


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    #15
    KC61
    Registered Users Posts: 4,316 ✭✭✭KC61


    paulm17781 wrote: »
    There's something like 6 months training involved. Apparently you have to really know every part of the line. It's not like pushing a start and stop button.

    It's actually 48 weeks before a driver is fully passed out.

    It is a skilled job, as drivers not only need to know how to drive each train type (they are all different in terms of cab layout and have different performance characteristics), but they also have to know every inch of track that they drive trains along.

    To put it into perspective, bear in mind that at any time a train driver must instinctively know the location of every signal, level crossing, set of points, know instinctively where every downward and upward gradient starts and finishes, and be able to slow a train that can be travelling at between 90 and 100mph at any point to come to a stop at exactly the correct location (that he cannot see), and that it can take up to 1.5 miles to bring the train to a stop. Consider that they must do precisely that in the pitch dark at night, with no lineside lighting to assist them and it puts the job into perspective.

    It is simply not possible to fire the existing drivers and hire replacements.

    In the case of this dispute, it would be fair to say that there is fault on both sides. Management have let this whole process drag on for several years without bringing it to a conclusion, and would appear to have let a history of poor industrial relations in Cork fester for quite some time, while not addressing satisfactorily all of the underlying issues. On the other hand the drivers in Cork have on several occasions been happy to take matters into their own hands and take unofficial action.

    Someone needs to grasp this situation and solve ALL of the problems, and bring this to a final conclusion as it is bordering on farce, while customers are being treated with disdain by all sides. The risk is that many customers will walk away from the railway to their cars, and won't return. That is something that IÉ can do without.


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    #16
    fh041205
    Registered Users Posts: 992 ✭✭✭fh041205


    markf909 wrote: »
    Irish Rail management are trying to incite this strike which is the scandalous thing about this issue.

    http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=64745-qqqx=1.asp

    Indeed, it seems that it is management, not new drivers who need the training most.


    Can you post that again please, the link doesn't seem to work for me.


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