BE strike [Read 1st post before posting]

Graham · 28-03-2017 04:30PM

PeadarCo wrote: »

Competition weakens unions probably more than bus Eireann. Its the reason they are so set against it.

This is it in a nutshell.

It is only the threat of withdrawing almost monopoly service providers like DB/IE/BE that gives the unions any power at all. I can only imagine they fully understand this, hence the large warchest to try and hold off the inevitable break up of the monopoly for as long as possible.

The type of all-out/indefinite industrial action we're seeing at the moment just wouldn't be possible in a scenario where there are multiple independent service providers.

Stephen15 · 28-03-2017 04:36PM

Why aren't Siptu balloting luas workers aswell they're transport workers too. Or could saying they're balloting DB and IE workers just be scaremongering.

JCX BXC · 28-03-2017 04:42PM

Stephen15 wrote: »

Why aren't Siptu balloting luas workers aswell they're transport workers too. Or could saying they're balloting DB and IE workers just be scaremongering.

Luas was never CIE.

AlmightyCushion · 28-03-2017 04:44PM

Stephen15 wrote: »

Why aren't Siptu balloting luas workers aswell they're transport workers too. Or could saying they're balloting DB and IE workers just be scaremongering.

I think Transdev insisted on a no strike clause being put into the new contact. There was definitely one in there on the old contracts and it expired shortly before the luas drivers went on strike.

GM228 · 28-03-2017 05:00PM

pilly wrote: »

Do they then get social welfare as well?

No.

But their families may be entitled to Supplementary Welfare Allowance.

GM228 · 28-03-2017 05:02PM

Heffoman wrote: »

I know from previous experience some Unions do not give strike pay for one day strikes.

Yes they do, they pay on a per day basis subject to maximum weekly limits, it's part of the union rules, but to qualify you must partake in whatever action is taking place.

GM228 · 28-03-2017 05:02PM

pilly wrote: »

So they're getting 200 a week? I can't see them sticking that out for too long.

SIPTU is €200 per week, NBRU is €250.

GM228 · 28-03-2017 05:04PM

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I think Transdev insisted on a no strike clause being put into the new contact. There was definitely one in there on the old contracts and it expired shortly before the luas drivers went on strike.

There was one in the older contract well before the strike, none are in the new contracts.

horseburger · 28-03-2017 05:40PM

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The interesting question is why the subsidy should have been 49.4m in the first place. It should Bennett have been so high because BE didn't suddenly become inefficient, no they always were and they basically got extra money when the country was awash with cash that we didn't have to spend.

The NTA is committed to putting routes under PSO where they are warranted and have already announced those for some routes already.

The good news is that there will be 150 buses on the market for private operators to provide more efficient services.

Depends what you mean by efficient. I took an Aircoach service recently from Belfast to Dublin that had about five people on it.

Do you consider that efficient?

How much did it cost to run that particular bus from Belfast to Dublin, compared to money it gained from the passengers using that particular service?

This Aircoach Belfast Dublin service is not much advantage to passengers at Sprucefield, Banbridge, or Newry.

The issue, as I see it is, I think Aircoach are running such services so regularly at the moment, because it is in competition with the hourly Bus Éireann / Translink Ulster Bus service.

If Bus Éireann collapses, in the way as advocated by many of the posters in this discussion, is there not a distinct possibility that Aircoach would then reduce its services to and from Dublin Airport and Dublin City Centre, as it would be under less pressure, to operate such a regular service.

Even if Bus Éireann did collapse, the advantage that Aircoach has over the new Dublin Coach service between Dublin and Belfast, is that Aircoach serves Dublin Airport.

Arguably, it might not lose passengers from Belfast going to Dublin Airport, if Bus Éireann did collapse, if the other services, between Belfast and Dublin, included the Dublin Coach service, between Belfast city centre and Dublin city centre, and a Translink Ulster Bus Belfast Sprucefield, Banbridge, Newry - Dublin Airport - Dublin City Centre service, which - if the service was only operated by Translink Ulster Bus - might end up being far less frequent, than it is at the moment.

For that reason, I wonder, is there a possibility that Aircoach might end up reducing the frequency of its services, between Belfast and Dublin Airport and Dublin city centre, if Bus Éireann ended, in the way, as advocated by some posters in this discussion.

Graham · 28-03-2017 05:44PM

horseburger wrote: »

Depends what you mean by efficient. I took an Aircoach service recently from Belfast to Dublin that had about five people on it.

Do you consider that efficient?

How much had the driver of that bus been paid for the trip?

What percentage of that drivers paid hours are spent behind the wheel transporting passengers?

Was that driver on normal rate or overtime rate?

Are those busses running today?

BowWow · 28-03-2017 05:47PM

GM228 wrote: »

SIPTU is €200 per week, NBRU is €250.

Is this taxable?

horseburger · 28-03-2017 05:51PM

Graham wrote: »

How much had the driver of that bus been paid for the trip?

What percentage of that drivers paid hours are spent behind the wheel transporting passengers?

Was that driver on normal rate or overtime rate?

Was it less than has been agreed, in his/her terms and conditions?

Is the company, to which he/she is affiliated, trying to force cutbacks on him, without the agreement of both sides in the dispute?

Graham · 28-03-2017 05:52PM

horseburger wrote: »

Was it less than has been agreed, in his terms and conditions?

Is the company, to which he is affiliated, trying to force cutbacks on him, without the agreement of both sides in the dispute?

Is his company on the verge of bankruptcy or insolvent trading?

Brendan Bendar · 28-03-2017 05:53PM

horseburger wrote: »

Was it less than has been agreed, in his terms and conditions?

Is the company, to which he is affiliated, trying to force cutbacks on him, without the agreement of both sides in the dispute?

Is the company he works for about to run out of cash in a few weeks?

jimmycrackcorm · 28-03-2017 05:54PM

horseburger wrote:

How much did it cost to run that particular bus from Belfast to Dublin, compared to money it gained from the passengers using that particular service?

How much profit do they make when the bus is full. What if the driver was on the second leg of his shift after the over profitable first one.

Why do cinemas still run shows if only 5 people attend? Why does Tesco be open at ten at night with maybe only 5 customers in?

Tis a malarky this commercial madness!

murphaph · 28-03-2017 05:58PM

horseburger wrote: »

Was it less than has been agreed, in his/her terms and conditions?

Is the company, to which he/she is affiliated, trying to force cutbacks on him, without the agreement of both sides in the dispute?

You do realise that BE Expressway is in a perilous financial position?

horseburger · 28-03-2017 06:00PM

Graham wrote: »

Is his company on the verge of bankruptcy or insolvent trading?

Is his/her company management trying to deflect responsibility on to its employees, for the way the company has been managed?

I say that with reference to the press releases by Bus Éireann that try to paint the striking employees in a very negative light, for the benefit of the public, with the aim to have the public focus negativity on the striking employees, rather than the management, which is trying to impose cuts to the employees, without prior agreement.

devnull · 28-03-2017 06:02PM

Graham wrote: »

How much had the driver of that bus been paid for the trip?

What percentage of that drivers paid hours are spent behind the wheel transporting passengers?

Was that driver on normal rate or overtime rate?

Are those busses running today?

Also some services will always be heavy loaded than others. It is common with public transport and especially on bus services that serve Dublin airport that demand is very much peaking at one way depending on the flight schedule and peak flight times.

Any airport bus in Europe is like that. For example buses early in morning from airports will be empty but buses in other ways will be full. Late evening it's the opposite way around. There will always be peaks and troughs in demand but just because one service is quiet the return might be very busy and vice versa.

I have been on aircoach services from Belfast that needed reliefs some others have been lightly loaded. You may claim that it is not efficent but aircoach are a successful and profit making company so the service clearly works for them. The major difference is bus eireann are not and have much higher costs. By the way. Aircoach is one of several privates with SIPTU representation.

If a busy bus runs from Dublin to Belfast and the bus back is empty but the next bus it operates back to Belfast is busy how do you expect it to get back to Belfast? Far better to run in service with few passengers than go back out of service. Judging a service by one bus is naive in the extreme. You have to see loadings for the service as a whole.

Every bus company has some lightly used services which are used as positioning duties to get a bus and driver in place for busy ones It happens with trains and I!planes too. A vehicle has to get to the busy departure point to operate a service from there and better to get some revenue than none.

murphaph · 28-03-2017 06:03PM

horseburger wrote: »

Is his/her company management trying to deflect responsibility on to its employees, for the way the company has been managed?

I say that with reference to the press releases by Bus Éireann that try to paint the striking employees in a very negative light, for the benefit of the public, with the aim to have the public focus negativity on the striking employees, rather than the management, which is trying to impose cuts to the employees, without prior agreement.

But BE Expressway is about to go bust.

Graham · 28-03-2017 06:03PM

horseburger wrote: »

Is his/her company management trying to deflect responsibility on to its employees, for the way the company has been managed?

I say that with reference to the press releases by Bus Éireann that try to paint the striking employees in a very negative light, for the benefit of the public, with the aim to have the public focus negativity on the striking employees, rather than the management, which is trying to impose cuts to the employees, without prior agreement.

It's hard not to focus on the employees when they make up the single biggest cost to the operation, it's doubly hard when those employees are both the most expensive and inefficient in the industry.

horseburger · 28-03-2017 06:05PM

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

How much profit do they make when the bus is full. What if the driver was on the second leg of his shift after the over profitable first one.

Why do cinemas still run shows if only 5 people attend? Why does Tesco be open at ten at night with maybe only 5 customers in?

Tis a malarky this commercial madness!

The point is, if one of its competing services ends, in this case Bus Éireann, Aircoach will be under less pressure to run such a regular service, to and from Dublin city centre, Dublin Airport and Belfast.

An obvious result of that would be a decision to have less frequent services, if there are particular services that are not busy at all.

devnull · 28-03-2017 06:09PM

I say that with reference to the press releases by the union that try to paint the regulator. Minister taxpayer and other operators in a very negative light, for the benefit of the public, with the aim to have the public focus negativity on the company management and everyone but themselves rather than the workers which is trying to force the taxpayers to cough up to keep their unsustainable terms?

devnull · 28-03-2017 06:14PM

horseburger wrote: »

The point is, if one of its competing services ends, in this case Bus Éireann, Aircoach will be under less pressure to run such a regular service, to and from Dublin city centre, Dublin Airport and Belfast.

An obvious result of that would be a decision to have less frequent services.

Aircoach are under no pressure at all to run a service they decided to run it and ran same timetable for last five years so can't see them having too many issues.

They haven't cut cork back despite gobe started with 15 in each direction before retreating.

You have strange logic. First you moaned that privates would not run services then they run too much now they only run because the competitions do?

Considering aircoach were first to launch non stop between two cities being cork and Belfastfirst to license routes from greystones first from ballsbridge and sandyford. I doubt they launched such timetables just to piss off others.

bk · 28-03-2017 06:24PM

horseburger wrote: »

The point is, if one of its competing services ends, in this case Bus Éireann, Aircoach will be under less pressure to run such a regular service, to and from Dublin city centre, Dublin Airport and Belfast.

An obvious result of that would be a decision to have less frequent services.

Bus Eireann doesn't have a competing service, BE's service is a stopping service, while Aircoaches (and now Dublin Coaches) services on the route are direct non-stop services.

Aircoach aren't running this service because of BE, then run it as they need the coach in place for a busy, profitable journey.

Also it is pretty weird to suggest that if BE shut down, that Aircoach would reduce their service! Surely if BE shut down, then that means more passengers for AC/DC (

) and thus such marginal services should be even busier and more profitable.

Also you have brought up this point multiple times and it has been explained in detail why such low capacity positioning services are required to get the bus and driver in place for the busier leg. It is absolutely the norm in all transport industries, not just bus, but train, planes, hell even Dublin Bikes!

This is a really a very basic concept of transport planning. You really need to stop bringing it up IMO, it sort of brings into question all the other comments you make.

It is also noticeable that you haven't replied to all the people who have pointed out that Aircoach is profitable operation, while BE is not and about to go bankrupt.

Graham · 28-03-2017 06:24PM

horseburger wrote: »

An obvious result of that would be a decision to have less frequent services.

The passengers currently using the BE services would very likely move to the Aircoach service. If anything aircoach may need to increase frequency.

GM228 · 28-03-2017 06:31PM

BowWow wrote: »

Is this taxable?

No, such payments are exempted from tax.

horseburger · 28-03-2017 06:43PM

devnull wrote: »

Aircoach are under no pressure at all to run a service they decided to run it and ran same timetable for last five years so can't see them having too many issues.

They haven't cut cork back despite gobe started with 15 in each direction before retreating.

You have strange logic. First you moaned that privates would not run services then they run too much now they only run because the competitions do?

Considering aircoach were first to launch non stop between two cities being cork and Belfastfirst to license routes from greystones first from ballsbridge and sandyford. I doubt they launched such timetables just to piss off others.

I was suggesting, that if they are running services at particular times, like the one I got from Belfast recently at 4.30pm with five people on it, and services during the night, like one I got recently from Belfast, where there were about 10 or 12 people on it, that a decision might be taken, at some point in the future, to discontinue particular services, that are not very busy.

That it might pull such services, would, to me, seem more of a possibility, if there was not another service covering Dublin Airport, at pretty much the same time.

horseburger · 28-03-2017 06:51PM

bk wrote: »

Bus Eireann doesn't have a competing service, BE's service is a stopping service, while Aircoaches (and now Dublin Coaches) services on the route are direct non-stop services.

Aircoach aren't running this service because of BE, then run it as they need the coach in place for a busy, profitable journey.

Also it is pretty weird to suggest that if BE shut down, that Aircoach would reduce their service! Surely if BE shut down, then that means more passengers for AC/DC ( ) and thus such marginal services should be even busier and more profitable.

Also you have brought up this point multiple times and it has been explained in detail why such low capacity positioning services are required to get the bus and driver in place for the busier leg. It is absolutely the norm in all transport industries, not just bus, but train, planes, hell even Dublin Bikes!

This is a really a very basic concept of transport planning. You really need to stop bringing it up IMO, it sort of brings into question all the other comments you make.

It is also noticeable that you haven't replied to all the people who have pointed out that Aircoach is profitable operation, while BE is not and about to go bankrupt.

I was making reference to the fact that both Bus Éireann and Aircoach cover Dublin Airport, as well as the fact that Aircoach doesn't serve Sprucefield, Banbridge or Newry.

Do you not think that it is any way possible that the reason Aircoach has an hourly Dublin Belfast service covering the Dublin airport, is to compete with Bus Éireann, and if Bus Éireann ended, that Aircoach might reduce its less busy services?

Graham · 28-03-2017 06:55PM

horseburger wrote: »

I was suggesting, that if they are running services at particular times, like the one I got from Belfast recently at 4.30pm with five people on it, and services during the night, like one I got recently from Belfast, where there were about 10 or 12 people on it, that a decision might be taken, at some point in the future, to discontinue particular services, that are not very busy.

That it might pull such services, would, to me, seem more of a possibility, if there was not another service covering Dublin Airport, at pretty much the same time.

I'm not sure if you're suggesting that Aircoach should or shouldn't run the services you think aren't being sufficiently/efficiently utilised?

horseburger · 28-03-2017 06:55PM

Graham wrote: »

The passengers currently using the BE services would very likely move to the Aircoach service. If anything aircoach may need to increase frequency.

Perhaps, but what type of service would you put in place for passengers at the intermediates stops currently covered by the Bus Éireann Ulster Bus Dublin Belfast service?

Neither the Aircoach or Dublin Coach Dublin Belfast services are much advantage to passengers in Sprucefield, Banbridge or Newry.

BE strike [Read 1st post before posting]

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