Irish Rail strike days

mickydoomsux

devnull wrote: »

I'm not going to go into explicit details the shareholders of my previous or current employers on a public forum for obvious reasons, but no, we were not government owned.

Did roughly 60% of your customers "pay" the equivalent of €100 a year to use whatever your company provided while the remaining 40% paid thousands?

mickydoomsux

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Could you please elaborate by what you mean when you say Safety Stuff within Irish Rail (the part that I highlighted in bold).

Literally anything will be paid for out of company coffers if you can argue that it is due to safety.

The station i work in had numerous blind-spots in the security cameras which meant that staff could be easily held-up opening or closing the station but nothing was done about it until a hazard report was lodged saying that a customer had a slip, trip or fall in the same areas with no CCTV footage available. New cameras sprung up within a week.

If we want anything done we have to prove that an accident can happen to a customer before management will loosen the purse strings to fix it.

I can pretty much guarantee a staff member will be seriously hurt in the next year by a hazard/maniac because the company doesn't give two ****s about us and will only address issues that effect passengers.

devnull

It's hard to use that analogy to describe our company as it was a very different industry.

Thanks to our hard work through the recession and everyone sticking together and all trying to make a go of things our number of patrons was only effected by a low single digit percentage wise.

If we were hit by say 20% over the course of a few years I'd hate to think what would have happened, but we all worked doubly as hard, taking short term sacrafices to save the company.

In the end most of us got the pay we lost back and most of the perks as well. We then picked up the business of our rivals who went bust by not adjusting their cost base enough, and shortly will get a new pay offer at the end of the year with a small increase.

Thanks to that management and staff have a great working relationship, far better than it was before since we all worked together to resolve our problems and the company is all the better for it. For sure we took some short term pain but in the long term it paid off.

end of the road

noodler wrote: »

Its not as simple as that, why should more of taxpayers money go to Irish Rail?

to keep the level of services we currently have going and to invest in the infrastructure. the railway is worth every penny and more. we all get a good deal from CIE as strange as it sounds. pay little and get the services we have. i'm one of the first to criticise if stupid mistakes are made but subsidy wise we get a good deal.

end of the road

Pipmae wrote: »

I have an IR annual ticket Gormanston to Pearse (and I pay handsomely for the pleasure). I had no intention of travelling by IR on Sunday or Monday last. However I'm almost sure I'll have to take a hit in the next few weeks. It could be a bus fare, petrol to drive to Dublin City & parking, etc. An IR refund on the day won't cover the hit.

I'm going to apply for credit for last Sunday and Monday. Any thoughts? Shoot me now for the dishonesty!

what do you mean? as in apply for the credit on the ticket even though you didn't travel? you can try but if you are caught well you know the rest

end of the road

devnull wrote: »

It's hard to use that analogy to describe our company as it was a very different industry.

Thanks to our hard work through the recession and everyone sticking together and all trying to make a go of things our number of patrons was only effected by a low single digit percentage wise.

If we were hit by say 20% over the course of a few years I'd hate to think what would have happened, but we all worked doubly as hard, taking short term sacrafices to save the company.

In the end most of us got the pay we lost back and most of the perks as well. We then picked up the business of our rivals who went bust by not adjusting their cost base enough, and shortly will get a new pay offer at the end of the year with a small increase.

Thanks to that management and staff have a great working relationship, far better than it was before since we all worked together to resolve our problems and the company is all the better for it. For sure we took some short term pain but in the long term it paid off.

but thats it. you and management worked together. the management in IE won't work with the staff and the staff don't trust them.

end of the road

Tube wrote: »

I have come to the conclusion that there are so many vested interests that post in this forum that a reasonable and rational discussion is not possible.

what is a reasonable and rational discussion in your opinion? if one is wanting the typical rabel rabel on the likes of the journal then no thanks i don't want it here myself but each to their own

Tube wrote: »

For every one member of the public there seems to be a multiple that have some connection to IE or trains that are willing to shout everyone else down.

thats the nature of forums like this though. you want the people who actually know whats going on within a company to tell you so of course they will have to have a vested interest.

dublinman1990

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Literally anything will be paid for out of company coffers if you can argue that it is due to safety.

The station i work in had numerous blind-spots in the security cameras which meant that staff could be easily held-up opening or closing the station but nothing was done about it until a hazard report was lodged saying that a customer had a slip, trip or fall in the same areas with no CCTV footage available. New cameras sprung up within a week.

If we want anything done we have to prove that an accident can happen to a customer before management will loosen the purse strings to fix it.

I can pretty much guarantee a staff member will be seriously hurt in the next year by a hazard/maniac because the company doesn't give two ****s about us and will only address issues that effect passengers.

I would ask you these questions in this way!

Are the staff at Irish Rail including those at the frontline given appropriate training to learn the health and safety aspects of their job regularly?

Does Irish Rail carry out risk assessments on a regular basis for various health and safety improvements in your workplace for both passengers and employees?

cdebru

devnull wrote: »

I'm not going to go into explicit details the shareholders of my previous or current employers on a public forum for obvious reasons, but no, we were not government owned.

But the shareholders in question had no more money to give, since they had other businesses that were struggling in the recession as well, all which had to make sacrifices just like the government now in this country where all parts of the public sector and other semi states are hit.

I know you guys got used to Bertie Ahern solving every single strike by writing out a cheque for however much money you wanted, but spending money like there is no tomorrow and constantly throwing it around like it's going out of fashion speaks volumes about why this country was brought to it's knees.

Look at all the problems Ireland had before the boom and after, for all the money we had what did it achieve? Very little to the average joe on the streets, but instead we have a very well paid public sector and people in the semi states that are paid a hell of a lot more on average than most countries.

Neither a private or a public model of transport works 100% since in both models you have a problem with greed. In the private model the shareholders are the ones with the greed problem, and in the public model the workers are the ones who are greed, so really there isn't much between them, just different parties syphooning off the money for their own vested interests.

The difference is I presume the shareholders in your company were not forcing the company you worked for to give their goods or services for free to a third of the adult population of the country without properly recompensing the company ?????

It is deeply unfair to accuse people of greed for wanting to hold onto their current wages when they see so much waste that is not being tackled, instead the management want to take the easier option and cut wages rather than protect revenue and tackle waste first.

cdebru

JayRoc wrote: »

That, dear boy, is why I carefully typed the word "after". And if anyone is arguing the toss over paying 2.80 pw for free GP care, I don't know what to say to them.

And that's coming from a man who's seen a GP twice in 19 years.

It is €145 a year that is roughly 3 visits a year whether you go or don't go in your case it would have cost you €2766 for 2 visits so probably the most expensive GP visits and definitely not free.

punisher5112

cdebru wrote: »

It is €145 a year that is roughly 3 visits a year whether you go or don't go in your case it would have cost you €2766 for 2 visits so probably the most expensive GP visits and definitely not free.

Exactly what I said not free people just see this as been a great free scheme.

Infini

Hilly Bill wrote: »

They havent. They didnt tell anyone at the time of the ballot that it may be an all out strike , if they did i doubt that the strike would have gone ahead.

Actually the ballot had up to and including all out strike as the 1st option.

devnull wrote: »

Thanks to that management and staff have a great working relationship, far better than it was before since we all worked together to resolve our problems and the company is all the better for it. For sure we took some short term pain but in the long term it paid off.

Its lucky you have managment that are realistic and reasonable and not utter gombeens. Its also tougher as a private company as well as you have no room for failure but at least your all able to work together to identify and rectify problems. Problem for us in IR is that theres a beligerent attitude from managment not to mention the fact that obvious revenue holes that might make a significant difference arent being addresses because they cant be bothered.

Example from one of the lads over in Tara st is the back entrance in tara st. Its wide open during both rush hours. Apart from the odd time ticket checkers are occasionally there someone from Maynooth, Balbriggan or even Gormanstown/Laytown could easily get through there for nothing during both rush hours. In addition your unlikely to be checked on the train during rush hour because its too packed to be checking tickets. Someone doing that for 2 weeks basically has basically made enough savings with the free travel to offset the fine and unless they have a check going on at broombridge all they gotta coming in to town is say is they came from there and they not only pay the minimum fare but they get away with the fine as well!

mickydoomsux

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I would ask you these questions in this way!

Are the staff at Irish Rail including those at the frontline given appropriate training to learn the health and safety aspects of their job regularly?

Does Irish Rail carry out risk assessments on a regular basis for various health and safety improvements in your workplace for both passengers and employees?

We do personal track safety once a year and manual handling every three years and that's pretty much it. Our training is done at a "legal minimum requirement level" and is usually worked around you actually being in work doing a shift of your job. If people knew how thinly stretched the front line staff in IE were outside of Dublin, they would be shocked.

Much more than half my weekly hours are spent running a busy station on my own and best of luck to any customers with special needs etc. I'll get to you if i have time, unfortunately. If there an emergency operator for a crossing needed or a pilotman is needed then the station is literally abandoned and you'll have to fend for yourself and find out why trains are delayed.

Safety briefs and other nonsense that have no bearing on the actual job are updated by our (frankly useless) station manager every now and then but that's it really.

cdebru

Always amazes me how these companies that have no money always have money to sponsor this that and the other.

Seriously does anyone jump on the Dart or take the train because IE is sponsoring the women's mini marathon, or a folk music festival in sligo ? Or the DCU students union ball ? Someone must have a relative attending DCU I presume or the North Dublin soccer leagues, or the Irish national youth ballet company ? should a company that is cutting its employees wages be spending money on these good causes that have little if any beneficial return for the company.

mickydoomsux

cdebru wrote: »

Always amazes me how these companies that have no money always have money to sponsor this that and the other.

Seriously does anyone jump on the Dart or take the train because IE is sponsoring the women's mini marathon, or a folk music festival in sligo ? Or the DCU students union ball ? Someone must have a relative attending DCU I presume or the North Dublin soccer leagues, or the Irish national youth ballet company ? should a company that is cutting its employees wages be spending money on these good causes that have little if any beneficial return for the company.

PR nonsense. We got posters adverting "take the train to Garth Brooks" months before it was cancelled. and the same for the One Direction shows that went ahead.

There were no planned special trains running on our line for either set of concerts.

As the older staff at my station say: "This company can't wait to waste money on things that don't matter". They've seen the pathetic attempts at PR that made zero difference to revenue over the years. People don't care about ads, they care about extra trains being put on when they want to go see/do something and that is the last thing the company will do because that costs overtime.

Jamie2k9

cdebru wrote: »

Always amazes me how these companies that have no money always have money to sponsor this that and the other.

Seriously does anyone jump on the Dart or take the train because IE is sponsoring the women's mini marathon, or a folk music festival in sligo ? Or the DCU students union ball ? Someone must have a relative attending DCU I presume or the North Dublin soccer leagues, or the Irish national youth ballet company ? should a company that is cutting its employees wages be spending money on these good causes that have little if any beneficial return for the company.

Any you know for certain there is no return?

There were no planned special trains running on our line for either set of concerts.

Actually after holding back on late night service for One Direction (outside of Cork/Limerick/Galway) they had planned services to Sligo and Waterford for all 5 nights of Gareth Brooks and just because every line didn't have late services does not mean people didn't use a service.

Grandeeod

end of the road wrote: »

what is a reasonable and rational discussion in your opinion? if one is wanting the typical rabel rabel on the likes of the journal then no thanks i don't want it here myself but each to their own



thats the nature of forums like this though. you want the people who actually know whats going on within a company to tell you so of course they will have to have a vested interest.

You have already revealed yourself to not having a clue about the history of CIE and I quote the luas as an example. Therefore your credibility is non existant. Understand the background of what you are talking about. If you think that the IE/CIE employees on this forum are providing an unbiased representation of their situation, then you keep on searching for that elusive IC train on the Rosslare route that your naievity deserves.

Grandeeod

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Did roughly 60% of your customers "pay" the equivalent of €100 a year to use whatever your company provided while the remaining 40% paid thousands?

You are still spinning that one.:D Withdraw free travel tomorrow and your company is ****ed more than it ever was. They travel because its free. If they have to pay for it, they won't in the same numbers and the DSP payment vanishes with it. Your particular vitriol towards the FTP is obsessive and lacks a real understanding of the state your employer is in. I'm all for a complete overhaul of the FTP, but are you all for a complete overhaul of the company you work for? No your not. All you want is to protect your own ass and your posts here are proof of it.

mickydoomsux

Grandeeod wrote: »

All you want is to protect your own ass and your posts here are proof of it.

Well, obviously. That's ultimately why people work, to look after themselves and the people they care about.

Of course I'm "protecting my own ass". Me and anyone else doing any other job would be a fool not to.

It's up to the company (whoever they may be) to be socially responsible or whatever other happy horse****. Just don't do it off the backs of the employees.

Grandeeod

end of the road wrote: »

the management in IE won't work with the staff and the staff don't trust them.

Wrong. You seem like a reasonable person, but I suggest you study the history of CIE and its industrial relations. Management are far from perfect. The shareholder is far from perfect, but staff have consistantly being protected from economic reality and enjoyed very good renumeration for what they do. The lack of trust has been driven by staff that point blank refuse to accept any step back in terms of basic pay. Invariably its drivers and to fully understand the ins and outs of that, you really need to study Irish railway history in general.

For your own sake google a bit, buy a few books, maybe even join the IRRS and avail of their library as it can provide you with more info than just a fantasy playback of history.

mickydoomsux

Grandeeod wrote: »

Wrong. You seem like a reasonable person, but I suggest you study the history of CIE and its industrial relations. Management are far from perfect. The shareholder is far from perfect, but staff have consistantly being protected from economic reality and enjoyed very good renumeration for what they do. The lack of trust has been driven by staff that point blank refuse to accept any step back in terms of basic pay. Invariably its drivers and to fully understand the ins and outs of that, you really need to study Irish railway history in general.

For your own sake google a bit, buy a few books, maybe even join the IRRS and avail of their library as it can provide you with more info than just a fantasy playback of history.

Irrelevant nonsense and essentially a slightly dressed up version of "DEM LAZY RAILWAY LADZ HAVE EVERYTHIN' !!!!!!1111!!!!"

end of the road

Grandeeod wrote: »

You have already revealed yourself to not having a clue about the history of CIE and I quote the luas as an example. Therefore your credibility is non existant. Understand the background of what you are talking about. If you think that the IE/CIE employees on this forum are providing an unbiased representation of their situation, then you keep on searching for that elusive IC train on the Rosslare route that your naievity deserves.

i'm well aware of the history, however i at least show respect for those on the ground who didn't make the decisians. i don't care about credibility and i understand what i'm talking about. i never said these peoples opinions were an unbiased representation of their situation, however i'd trust theirs over the tabloids. i don't even know what the last bit of your point means, but ICRS on the rosslare line aren't illusive, all though they don't work every service unlike the pet routes out of heuston, and i do admit having to avoid services known to be operated by suburban stock is rather tedious but at least its not full time like it was.

cdebru

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Any you know for certain there is no return?


.

Well I'd love to see the business case for it, have all the DCU students started using the dart to get to DCU ? Do the masses that attend the youth ballet company all arrive by train ? Have killester boys upped their dart usage ?

cdebru

Grandeeod wrote: »

You are still spinning that one.:D Withdraw free travel tomorrow and your company is ****ed more than it ever was. They travel because its free. If they have to pay for it, they won't in the same numbers and the DSP payment vanishes with it. Your particular vitriol towards the FTP is obsessive and lacks a real understanding of the state your employer is in. I'm all for a complete overhaul of the FTP, but are you all for a complete overhaul of the company you work for? No your not. All you want is to protect your own ass and your posts here are proof of it.

And that's not spinning ?

You wouldn't need them in the same numbers if they were paying their fare, irrespective no one is looking for free travel to be scrapped, just for it to be properly funded ie not on the backs of those working for CIE, and for the mass fraud to be tackled.

Infini

mickydoomsux wrote: »

We do personal track safety once a year and manual handling every three years and that's pretty much it. Our training is done at a "legal minimum requirement level" and is usually worked around you actually being in work doing a shift of your job. If people knew how thinly stretched the front line staff in IE were outside of Dublin, they would be shocked.

Much more than half my weekly hours are spent running a busy station on my own and best of luck to any customers with special needs etc. I'll get to you if i have time, unfortunately. If there an emergency operator for a crossing needed or a pilotman is needed then the station is literally abandoned and you'll have to fend for yourself and find out why trains are delayed.

Safety briefs and other nonsense that have no bearing on the actual job are updated by our (frankly useless) station manager every now and then but that's it really.

To be honest its not much better in Dublin either the northside stations are unmanned in the evenings some are locked up at 7pm like Kilbarrack and its not much better on the southside as theyre not filling the job vacancies since they think "oh the machines will take the money in". Ive seen tourists getting fed up with them and walking off for the bus cos noones there and theyre not good with machines. ~.~

Ironically enough years ago management got the agreement for putting in the machines in return for a promise that the jobs would be maintained. Yet another agreement broken. They also been adding more machines to the halts even though the staff there have told them they dont need more machines they need modern equipment the booking offices dont have credit card or leap card machines and the booking office machines are hand-me-downs from british rail from 35 years ago -_-

Want a prime example of waste? Spends hundreds of thousands of euro installing new validators, only ends up leaving them all open cos noones there to control them.

Grandeeod wrote: »

You are still spinning that one. Withdraw free travel tomorrow and your company is ****ed more than it ever was. They travel because its free. If they have to pay for it, they won't in the same numbers and the DSP payment vanishes with it. Your particular vitriol towards the FTP is obsessive and lacks a real understanding of the state your employer is in. I'm all for a complete overhaul of the FTP, but are you all for a complete overhaul of the company you work for? No your not. All you want is to protect your own ass and your posts here are proof of it.

How's it obsessive to point out the massive elephant in the room? The FTP is a joke atm I mean comeon theyve busted lads making proper perfect copies of the cornflakes box size ones and they never had any form of expiry whatsowever on them. It was grand when it was old people on it with the on peak restrictions the problem is its become a bloated monstrosity over the years from political interference thats its becoming untenable. Even some private bus operators looked at the scheme and walked away cos they saw it wasnt even worth the money yet alone the hassle. Theyre rolling out new cards but they've yet to announce when the old passes will be considered invalid even they keep pushing the date back for the tag on/off function for them too.

wolfmoon87

end of the road wrote: »

what do you mean? as in apply for the credit on the ticket even though you didn't travel? you can try but if you are caught well you know the rest

There were no trains running, so he couldn't have used his ticket anyway.
He has an annual ticket and he is entitled to a refund for the days that there was no service.

JayRoc

cdebru wrote: »

It is €145 a year that is roughly 3 visits a year whether you go or don't go in your case it would have cost you €2766 for 2 visits so probably the most expensive GP visits and definitely not free.

But it's not mandatory, is it?

So you're complaining about being given the option of GP care for less than three quid a week for you (and again, correct me if I'm wrong here) AND your family?

Most people I know would kill for these perks.

To be honest, I think this strike might be a huge blunder on the part of your unions, because apart from anything else it's drawn a lot of publicity to a pay and perks package that the vast majority of your customers weren't aware of.
Striking while IR employees are earning a minimum of 700 bills a week (that's according to one of your own guys earlier in this thread) along with a GP care scheme for peanuts and free travel, etc....just makes yee seem ungrateful and petty to most people, I would imagine.

may06

JayRoc wrote: »

But it's not mandatory, is it?

So you're complaining about being given the option of GP care for less than three quid a week for you (and again, correct me if I'm wrong here) AND your family?

Most people I know would kill for these perks.

To be honest, I think this strike might be a huge blunder on the part of your unions, because apart from anything else it's drawn a lot of publicity to a pay and perks package that the vast majority of your customers weren't aware of.
Striking while IR employees are earning a minimum of 700 bills a week (that's according to one of your own guys earlier in this thread) along with a GP care scheme for peanuts and free travel, etc....just makes yee seem ungrateful and petty to most people, I would imagine.

And what do you propose IR employees do? Sounds to me like your just jealous of the 'so called perks' the employees allegedly get? They're not happy with their pay and conditions and are well within their rights to go out on strike in defence of what's left of their earnings.

JayRoc

may06 wrote: »

Sounds to me like your just jealous of the 'so called perks' the employees allegedly get?

Hell yes, I'm jealous!

And like I said, the information I'm going off is from IR staff, mostly on this thread.

may06

JayRoc wrote: »

Hell yes, I'm jealous!

And like I said, the information I'm going off is from IR staff, mostly on this thread.

you didnt answer my question either.