BE strike [Read 1st post before posting]

Pkiernan

It is a terrible pity that the Marxist Unions can't be sued for consequential losses.
Any train travellers today should be allowed by law to claim damages from these radicals.

Del.Monte

jacksie66 wrote: »

Unions have this country ruined..

Don't forget useless, overpaid management, senior civil servants and their masters while you're having a rant.

suicide_circus

JCX BXC wrote: »

Absoutley disgraceful from the Iarnrod Eireann drivers. While many areas may have coped with just the train and private bus services, cutting the train because they feel too privileged and entitled to pass another company's dispute is just scummy.

Holding the country to ransom is not the answer,

I think you'll find it is the answer, it's been working for decades, if it ain't broke...

Yourself isit

Ive been pro union but the rail workers should keep out.

devnull

Disruption has now spread to Bus Operators other than Bus Eireann.

According to Bus Eireann twitter, GoBe services operated by GoBus in partnership with Bus Eireann using GoBus staff on a GoBus License are now not running from Cork for a reason that has not yet been disclosed.

During the last Bus Eireann Strike, a group of Bus Eireann Staff prevented the buses from leaving, maybe it is the same case now, maybe they have just taken a precautionary measure and it is not connected at all.

This is what happened in 2013:
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/05/13/meanwhile-in-cork-29/

A_Sober_Paddy

Would be great if some of these union heads just "disappeared" i wonder is there anyone in the Dundlk/Drogheda region which such skills

But seriously the carry on with transport unions in this country is a disgrace, they should be ashamed of themselves

eigrod

All major road routes entering Dublin later today will be bedlam with the match on this evening. Would've been bad enough with public transport running, but now it will be gridlock.

n97 mini

eigrod wrote: »

All major road routes entering Dublin later today will be bedlam with the match on this evening. Would've been bad enough with public transport running, but now it will be gridlock.

Commuter trains and Luas all running fine. P&R at the less obvious spots, as I'd say the obvious ones will be jammed.

_Kaiser_

RTE R1 news just said that Cork train drivers to go back to work from 11am

devnull

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

RTE R1 news just said that Cork train drivers to go back to work from 11am

Did they say what changed?

punisher5112

Really should be discussing the madness of billions squandered on banks who now won't lend to those renting as they can't afford to get a mortgage as can't save with such extortionate prices and the billions each year pumped out on welfare.

_Kaiser_

devnull wrote: »

Did they say what changed?

No just the headline.. Sean O'Rourke's show is discussing it now interviewing people on the BE picket lines.

Although as I type, they just said a meeting is due to happen in Cork with workers in the next hour.

They now have an IE worker trying to justify his not passing the picket.

devnull

punisher5112 wrote: »

Really should be discussing the madness of billions squandered on banks who now won't lend to those renting as they can't afford to get a mortgage as can't save with such extortionate prices and the billions each year pumped out on welfare.

There is a dedicated forum for that kind of discussion and frequently we see that kind of general rhetorical statement as an answer from the pro-union side to avoid discussing the actual topic at hand which you continue to avoid discussing.

Bus Eireann said in a full costed and written report that there are 1,378 drivers who work overtime each day which equals the cost of 1,636 drivers. It said if the company was to maximise driver efficiency, there would be a requirement for 986 full-time drivers. This alone is a shocking statistic and must be addressed.

Right now they are paying for the equivalent 650 more staff members than the company feels it needs at the moment and the average pay is €45,000 at the driver grade. You are saying that private operators have the same level of fat and excess in them that BE has?

Essentially the company is saying that with modern working practices and rotas that make the best use of resources, they can save over €25m before even talking about changing any terms and conditions or rates and any other cost measures. That is staggering.

Wichita Lineman

"Commuter trains and Luas all running fine."

Not so. Hundreds of commuters have been left stranded or driving today as a result of disgraceful behaviour by Irish Rail drivers not turning up for work. I drove from Mullingar as we were only told upon arrival at the station that our train was cancelled and when I asked why it wasn't on the website I was rudely told to 'take it up with the internet'!!

I have no problem with BE drivers taking whatever action they feel is necessary until something is sorted out for them one way or the other but for Irish Rail to clearly state on their twitter feed yesterday that train services would NOT be affected is disgraceful disregard for their customers.

_Kaiser_

Union guy saying train drivers should be at work, but says he couldn't pass the picket as it's a moral dilemma :rolleyes:

ThisRegard

So the union guy on Sean O'Rourke has said that the motorways have brought in unfair competition to BE. FFS, sure close them down so and allow the bloated mess that's BE to continue as is.

_Kaiser_

ThisRegard wrote: »

So the union guy on Sean O'Rourke has said that the motorways have brought in unfair competition to BE. FFS, sure close them down so and allow the bloated mess that's BE to continue as is.

He even managed to pull in an Anglo reference :rolleyes:

devnull

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

He even managed to pull in an Anglo reference :rolleyes:

Typical union tactic, resort to talking about general politics and a ideological rant about society in general and the usual rhetoric to get away from the issues within their own company and discussing the topics at hand.

It doesn't take away from the fact that taxpayers are not getting good value for money and that working practices and rotas are highly inefficient, when they fix that and get their own house in order, then maybe they should discuss others?

SkepticQuark

JCX BXC wrote: »

Absoutley disgraceful from the Iarnrod Eireann drivers. While many areas may have coped with just the train and private bus services, cutting the train because they feel too privileged and entitled to pass another company's dispute is just scummy.

Holding the country to ransom is not the answer, I hope the company is wound down tonight and all these entitled cnuts get to avail of their PRSI entitlements.

The charming and salty people in this thread don't fail to amuse me. Why are people so surprised that in a lot of cases other services would be affected? I'm surprised at just how many have forgotten their industrial relations section in business studies.. It's seems like common sense to me that when picketing takes place other non-union or members of other unions won't cross a picket line.

Come on people what did you expect when a publicly owned company gets no support from government and leaves management to run the thing. This was always going to happen when the government decided they want BE to be privatised or wiped from the face of the earth. And when management come into an negotiation and start demanding millions of euro in pay cuts and "efficiencies" when apparently we're supposed to be "keeping the recovery going" what the **** did people think would happen? The unions and workers would magically roll over?

Edit: just to be clear I agree BE clearly has fundamental issues in the way its operating but at the same time **** posting about the unions acting like this was all a shock that the whole thing including rail would be affected just seems silly.

h57xiucj2z946q

I have tickets for the 15:35 train from Heuston to Galway.

This link http://www.irishrail.ie/news/rail-services-bus-eireann-dispute doesn't say if the train is running or if it is cancelled! I emailed them this morning, but no reply.

Am I better off just taking CityLink or GoBus to Galway ?

Bryan Wonderful Mirage

Bryan Wonderful Mirage wrote: »

I have tickets for the 15:35 train from Heuston to Galway.

This link http://www.irishrail.ie/news/rail-services-bus-eireann-dispute doesn't say if the train is running or if it is cancelled! I emailed them this morning, but no reply.

Am I better off just taking CityLink or GoBus to Galway ?

Yes.

GavRedKing

From 11am all Cork services are back, according to IE on Twitter.

jimmycrackcorm

roddy15 wrote:

The charming people in this thread don't fail to amuse me. Why are people so surprised that in a lot of cases other services would be affected? I'm surprised at just how many have forgotten their industrial relations section in business studies.. It's seems like common sense to me that when picketing takes place other non-union or members of other unions won't cross a picket line.

That's all well and good, but the consequences should be that if you don't piss a pocket line for something that doesn't involve your employer and fail to turn up for work without valid reason then you should be put through disciplinary just as you would for any other choice you make to decide to not turn up.

oppenheimer1

roddy15 wrote: »

The charming people in this thread don't fail to amuse me. Why are people so surprised that in a lot of cases other services would be affected? I'm surprised at just how many have forgotten their industrial relations section in business studies.. It's seems like common sense to me that when picketing takes place other non-union or members of other unions won't cross a picket line.

They wouldn't have been surprised at locations where BE and IE share depot's. They would be rightly disappointed and annoyed.

However when it comes to the likes of Cork, where the bus station is not at the train station, they have right to be very angry at Unions (both bus and rail) setting out to frustrate them. There was no justification for a picket at Cork train station.

It just shows the contempt public transport Unions have for the public.

Edit: It appears now that there was no picket at Cork Train Station, that IE staff stayed out in solidarity. Thats even worse behaviour from IE imo.

devnull

roddy15 wrote: »

Come on people what did you expect when a publicly owned company gets no support from government and leaves management to run the thing.

I'd call getting approx €100m last year in assets and subsidy from the state, hardly nothing.

And when management come into an negotiation and start demanding millions of euro in pay cuts and "efficiencies" when apparently we're supposed to be "keeping the recovery going" what the **** did people think would happen? The unions and workers would magically roll over?

Bus Eireann said in a full costed and written report that there are 1,378 drivers who work overtime each day which equals the cost of 1,636 drivers. It said if the company was to maximise driver efficiency, there would be a requirement for 986 full-time drivers. This alone is a shocking statistic and must be addressed.

In 2016 the average driver paid hours were 9.4 and the average revenue generating driving time was 5.5 hours per day which allowed a significant number of drivers to increase their earnings to over €60,000.

The report says that in many cases, the senior, higher earning drivers have an easier schedule with less weekend work, and less actual revenue generating driving time than the people.

This gives the impression that the new entrants are doing the donkey work with more weekend work, harder schedules, less overtime and more driving hours whilst the people at the top of the tree are driving less, earning more, claiming more over-time, working on the nicer routes with the better schedules. Not much solidarity there.

SkepticQuark

devnull wrote: »

I'd call getting approx €100m last year in assets and subsidy from the state, hardly nothing.



The company is on record as saying there are 1,378 full time drivers who last year worked an average of 1.6 hours overtime per day which equates to 1,636 full time equivalent drivers.

In 2016 the average driver paid hours were 9.4 and the average revenue generating driving time was 5.5 hours per day which allowed a significant number of drivers to increase their earnings to over €60,000.

The report says that in many cases, the senior, higher earning drivers have an easier schedule with less weekend work, and less actual revenue generating driving time than the people.

This gives the impression that the new entrants are doing the donkey work with more weekend work, harder schedules, less overtime and more driving hours whilst the people at the top of the tree are driving less, earning more, claiming more over-time, working on the nicer routes with the better schedules. Not much solidarity there.

First point, you know I'm talking about this current issue. The government need to get involved now like they should have done when the company started losing millions. Not saying to write them a cheque but Shane Ross as transport minister should have intervened. Management clearly can't be trusted to run it correctly and have shot themselves in the foot by letting this strike happen. It's funny how they don't seem to care that by pushing the union to this point they will lose even more money.

And in regards to the rest of it, as I said in an edit I'm not arguing that BE as a company has major issues in its costs and operations that need to be addressed but coming to workers in the current economic climate and demanding they take millions of euro in pay reductions is not going to get you a "ah sur" response. Strikes were always going to happen in my opinion when government refused to offer any assistance and both sides of the issue were entrenched.

kub

roddy15 wrote: »

First point, you know I'm talking about this current issue. The government need to get involved now like they should have done when the company started losing millions. Not saying to write them a cheque but Shane Ross as transport minister should have intervened. Management clearly can't be trusted to run it correctly and have shot themselves in the foot by letting this strike happen. It's funny how they don't seem to care that by pushing the union to this point they will lose even more money.

And in regards to the rest of it, as I said in an edit I'm not arguing that BE as a company has major issues in its costs and operations that need to be addressed but coming to workers in the current economic climate and demanding they take millions of euro in pay reductions is not going to get you a "ah sur" response. Strikes were always going to happen in my opinion when government refused to offer any assistance and both sides of the issue were entrenched.

The Government has no business in this, PSO routes are operated by Bus Eireann, they are paid a subsidy for this by NTA, who also provide the vehicles by the way.
I hope the end result here is that, the tax payer does not have to carry the can for wastage by both drivers and management.
I hope reality comes around, I hope BE is put down, just like a sick animal and that all these PSO routes are tendered out to private contractors so we will never see a situation like this again.

murphaph

roddy15 wrote: »

The charming and salty people in this thread don't fail to amuse me. Why are people so surprised that in a lot of cases other services would be affected? I'm surprised at just how many have forgotten their industrial relations section in business studies.. It's seems like common sense to me that when picketing takes place other non-union or members of other unions won't cross a picket line.

Come on people what did you expect when a publicly owned company gets no support from government and leaves management to run the thing. This was always going to happen when the government decided they want BE to be privatised or wiped from the face of the earth. And when management come into an negotiation and start demanding millions of euro in pay cuts and "efficiencies" when apparently we're supposed to be "keeping the recovery going" what the **** did people think would happen? The unions and workers would magically roll over?

Edit: just to be clear I agree BE clearly has fundamental issues in the way its operating but at the same time **** posting about the unions acting like this was all a shock that the whole thing including rail would be affected just seems silly.

Here in Berlin (and Generally in Germany) when the S-Bahn strikes, the U-Bahn lays on increased services and vice versa. Some attempt is made at least to allow normal working people to get around. Not so in Ireland, where the general public are fair game.

The general public has had enough though. I hope BE folds over this strike now.

devnull

roddy15 wrote: »

And in regards to the rest of it, as I said in an edit I'm not arguing that BE as a company has major issues in its costs and operations that need to be addressed but coming to workers in the current economic climate and demanding they take millions of euro in pay reductions is not going to get you a "ah sur" response. Strikes were always going to happen in my opinion when government refused to offer any assistance and both sides of the issue were entrenched.

Nobody has talked about cutting basic pay.

A large amount of costs are related to the fact driver rotas are vastly inefficent which create unsustainable amounts of overtime to operate regular services. Undeniably the staff are currently benefiting from that and in many cases earning over 60 grand.

It's fairly obvious that the most inefficent areas of the business are where cost savings will need to be made and the driving grade unfortunately alone is responsible for 25 million in costs that do not need to be there.

Regardless of what the government do or do not do the simple fact is that the driving cost are too high. The staff are not productive enough the rotas are allowing the haemorrhage of money through overtime which is not required.

If the taxpayers were getting good value for money and the staff were providmg it I would totally agree that they should not bear the brunt. But they are not so they should bear some.

CIARAN_BOYLE

What cost cutting measurements did management implement? That's what this strike is about isn't it? The unilateral imposition of cost cutting? Is it just reducing overtime by 3 hours a week? Or is there something substantial?