bike rack at work

souter

Hi, I work (subcontract) for a government agency. We have around 150 people here and are very poorly served by public transport. There is an underground car park, but no bike rack. I have been trying without success to get one installed.
I would appreciate if anyone could provide me with any links to bike rack suppliers in Ireland, and also any government cant or legislation I can use in arguing for this.

Thanks

kmick

Its a shame it has come this far - the government encourage the idea of cycling but only if it is at no cost to them. Employers are the same. There is no legislation in this area Im afraid. The best thing to do is appeal to someone as high up the food chain as you can. Forget about HR as they are worse than useless in most organisations. Pick a target man or woman very high up the chain and arrange a personal meeting or corner him/her in a kitchen or night out. Explain your situation rationally without emotion i.e. you would like to be able to cycle to work but that you cant get through the red tape. Do not mention to anyone else what you did. If you dont get a result go higher again.

Good luck.

Alternatively just cycle down and lock to the nearest structure. If anyone challenges you tell them HR said it was ok

Mucco

The LCC have a pdf on their site:
http://www.lcc.org.uk/documents/Cycle%20Parking%20Equipment.pdf
London-centric, obviously, but should give you an idea of specs.

Most cars will be single occupancy. You can probably fit 10 bikes in one car parking space. Therefore giving up one person's car parking space, will accommodate ten people's bikes.

M

Hungrycol

kmick wrote: »

Forget about HR as they are worse than useless in most organisations.

Ahem. Lets not be so quick to judge one's occupation shall we.

penexpers

Yep. In my last job, HR were very proactive about getting an extra bike shed when the demand for the first one was exceeded.

irlrobins

souter wrote: »

I would appreciate if anyone could provide me with any links to bike rack suppliers in Ireland

http://www.cycle-works.co.uk/

(They have an Irish agent too)

daymobrew

Maybe write to the Minister responsible for the agency saying you'd like to try the cycling idea mentioned in a website you came across and that cycling is apparently a good thing.

souter

I've escalated the issue, but I'm in a bit of a delicate postion given I'm working here on a publicly tendered contract so I can't push it to aggresively. I've yet to locate the (only) other cyclist - with luck they'll be a civil servant but whether they can be persuaded to be my cats paw is another matter.

I'll have to leap up the food chain to those heroic eco warriors in government - maybe having abandonned so many principles they'll make an effort with such a cheap green initiative.

Hungrycol

Unless it means that one of the Civil Servants has to give up their car parking space for the rack! Somebody get me some popcorn.

SerialComplaint

I found a couple of Irish suppliers of 'Sheffield Stand' bike racks with a bit of Googling a few weeks back, as my employer has agreed to put in a decent bike shed.

As a sub-contractor, I don't think HR will want to talk to you. You could raise the issue with your agency or when your contract is coming up for review. Or get some of the full-timers to raise it through the partnership committee.