Buses on Strike

Cactus Col · 28-09-2004 02:57PM

the_syco wrote:

A couple of the major US compaines here are thinking of moving awa from Ireland, due to our unions!

yes ... but they are moving to countries with very few workers right as well ... would you prefer we allowed them to hire 10 year olds to make t-shirts at 50c an hour here?

The reason the house prices went through the roofs was because all of a sudden people in ireland had money enough to buy houses, the demand went up, so the supply of houses also went up, creating a demand for workers, resulting in labourers earnings going up.

as soon as the demand for new houses slows, wages in the building industry will drop fairly quickly.

stevenmu · 28-09-2004 03:25PM

Yeah, I remember the train drivers went on strike a few years back and they picketed the bus stations so they couldn't run either. If this guy didn't get his entitlements there's procedures he can take, he doesn't need to shut the whole service down. There wasn't even a threat of a strike untill 10:00pm last night, how many managers are going to be in a position to do something for him at that time of night ?

Cactus Col · 28-09-2004 03:48PM

they were in a position to do something every day since he was pissed on, but didn't.

stevenmu · 28-09-2004 04:51PM

Cactus Col wrote:

they were in a position to do something every day since he was pissed on, but didn't.

Does anybody know what steps he had taken before deciding to strike ? All I've heard is that management were told there would be a strike at 10pm yesterday, they deny they even knew about this. I haven't heard anything about how he tried to deal with it within the company.

What it comes down is that he didn't get money he felt he was owed. He wasn't striking for better safety or anything like that. He should have taken the matter to the HR department and then to management within DB. If he is contractually owed the money he could have then taken it to the labour court. If not he always has the option of leaving and getting a different job. What happened to him is very sad, and I personally think he should be compensated, but if he's unhappy with the response of his employers he should leave the company, or if he has a legal right to the money he should follow it up that way. He should not be jumping on the strike bandwagon. He's just demeaning what should be a last resort for people with no other choice.

shellspeare · 28-09-2004 05:15PM

I live in south yorkshire and our buses went on strike in june for almost two months, it was an absolute nightmare. The food supplies in local shops drastically reduced and three children had road accidents on their bikes.
I'm a firm believer in fighting for ones rights but two months was a tad too long, two people i know got fired from work for being late, taxi companies upped their prices. It's a shame when companies take advantage of situations like this.

Agent Smith · 28-09-2004 07:45PM

the bus's were on strike today?

didnt even notice, i got a 111 to dun laoighaire today and heard nothing about it

Victor · 29-09-2004 12:53AM

the_syco wrote:

Just look @ the builders wages. They used to be sh!t. Then they started to get a quid per brick. Prices have trebled in the last few years, because of this. Now, thanks to the unions, the builders get paid nicely.

Actually, union rates in construction have lagged behind market rates. It is the banks lending cheap money that has caused excess demand in the market. Excess demand shoves up prices.

billy the squid · 29-09-2004 01:02AM

Winters wrote:

Bus servers are back to normal following the strike accorinding to breakingnews.ie

I hate unions. Its them that bring the country to its knees whenever they want. They seem to be doing a lot more harm then good. These things can be easier solved without going through the unions and having half the bus service crippled for a morning. Its not like we have a decent public transport system inplace where if there is a strike people can take another mode of transport.

before my employer became unionised people were being forced into working 20 hour shifts five days a week.

I was witness to a heavily pregnant woman being forsed to work in a standing up work station for ten and a half hours until she collapsed and was wheeled off to hospital.

now we have union none of that **** happens now.

Some of the multinationals and national companies in the private sector would be coplete ****holes if it werent for unionisation. yeah some people take it too far and strike if the kettle in the canteen isnt boiling at break time, but there were companies here in Limerick, for example which used to flout the labour laws as late as 2000 and 2001, and their employees werent foreigners, they were irish.

as for unions being responsible for the rise in costs, let me put it to you this way on the last PPF installment I received a 10 euro pay rise. This put me above the amount you can get away with not having to pay PRSI, The PRSI i now pay is roughly 10 euros. meaning I got **** all. people on the dole got the tenner into their back pocket.

Blub2k4 · 29-09-2004 08:05AM

Kêrmêtt&#234 wrote:

The driver of a bus was peed on. He had to take sick leave from work to recover from whatever ailment he was left with after the attack.
Dublin Bus refused to pay him for his Sick Leave and this is what the whole problem is about.

This is not the whole story, if that was it then it would be ok, but apparently the man was down for overtime on the Sunday that he took sick, the company paid him for the sick day but refused to add the extra money that the overtime would have added, he was being an arse basically, he didn't work ovetime but wanted it taken into account with sick pay, a clear case of abuse of work to rule.

Blub2k4 · 29-09-2004 08:11AM

Kêrmêtt&#234 wrote:

The driver of a bus was peed on. He had to take sick leave from work to recover from whatever ailment he was left with after the attack.
Dublin Bus refused to pay him for his Sick Leave and this is what the whole problem is about.

This is not the whole story, if that was it then it would be ok, but apparently the man was down for overtime on the Sunday that he took sick, the company paid him for the sick day but refused to add the extra money that the overtime would have added, he was being an arse basically, he didn't work ovetime but wanted it taken into account with sick pay, a clear case of abuse of work to rule.

ixoy · 29-09-2004 09:23AM

Blub2k4 wrote:

This is not the whole story, if that was it then it would be ok, but apparently the man was down for overtime on the Sunday that he took sick, the company paid him for the sick day but refused to add the extra money that the overtime would have added, he was being an arse basically, he didn't work ovetime but wanted it taken into account with sick pay, a clear case of abuse of work to rule.

Apparently it's even worse than that according to the Irish Independent :

[font=Verdana, Arial] The row erupted over a driver's concern that having sought sick leave following an assault over the weekend he would have lost some overtime earnings. On Friday evening he was urinated on by three teenage boys.

Management contended the driver had failed to report the assault or follow procedures and, instead, opted for sick leave and obtained a medical certificate from his own doctor. He requested passengers to alight and returned to his garage, informing his controller of the unpleasant incident and telling him that he was going home to recover.

Yesterday five colleagues supported his grievance by placing an unofficial picket on the Ringsend garage. It was supported by most of the drivers rostered for the Tallaght and south-west Dublin routes.

A company spokeswoman said the driver should have reported the incident as an assault to the depot manager who would have contacted the State bus company's medical officer to assess his condition.

On assault leave, the driver would be entitled to full pay including shift allowances, but not overtime earnings. The driver had a medical cert effective from Saturday to yesterday but returned to work early.

So apparently he failed to report it as an assault and follow the procedures in place, from the beginning (let's not forget the fact he dumped all his passengers). It's a nasty business (even though the urine was from above him and not directly onto him), but his actions were wrong. And seriously - striking for the overtime when full pay was perfectly available? Noone else sees that as pushing it a little?

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Blub2k4 · 29-09-2004 09:38AM

It was a classic case of the type of thing that gave unions a bad name, in any other job he would have been fired. I so dont want them to be privatised but stuff like this embarrasses the socialist in me and makes me think sometimes that privatisation would put them on a level playing field with the rest of us.

Victor · 29-09-2004 09:54AM

On Friday evening he was urinated on by three teenage boys.

Do I want to know the mechanics of this? :eek:

ixoy · 29-09-2004 09:59AM

Victor wrote:

Do I want to know the mechanics of this? :eek:

Yes you do

Yesterday the bus driver at the centre of the dispute told how he had to take a disinfectant bath after the three youths urinated on him. Les Hughes said that the boys, aged 15-16, urinated on his number 77 bus on Friday evening from Jobstown to the city centre. [font=Verdana, Arial] The incident happened as the bus was at the Half Way House on the Longmile Road. They were on the top of the bus.

"The urine came through and I was soaked from head to toe. The dash and cabin of the bus were too. They got off the bus and ran away. Every driver on that route has to deal with abuse daily," he said.

Interesting they didn't ehh urinate directly onto him which is a reasonably important point if it's being viewed as an assault.

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Blub2k4 · 29-09-2004 10:17AM

ixoy wrote:

Interesting they didn't ehh urinate directly onto him which is a reasonably important point if it's being viewed as an assault.

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But then he would have had to report it as such, but he was more interested in being a chancer.

Kêrmêttê · 29-09-2004 11:20AM

Kêrmêtt&#234 wrote:

The driver of a bus was peed on. He had to take sick leave from work to recover from whatever ailment he was left with after the attack.
Dublin Bus refused to pay him for his Sick Leave and this is what the whole problem is about.

Blub2k4 wrote:

This is not the whole story, if that was it then it would be ok, but apparently the man was down for overtime on the Sunday that he took sick, the company paid him for the sick day but refused to add the extra money that the overtime would have added, he was being an arse basically, he didn't work ovetime but wanted it taken into account with sick pay, a clear case of abuse of work to rule.

ixoy wrote:

Apparently it's even worse than that according to the Irish Independent :
So apparently he failed to report it as an assault and follow the procedures in place, from the beginning (let's not forget the fact he dumped all his passengers). It's a nasty business (even though the urine was from above him and not directly onto him), but his actions were wrong. And seriously - striking for the overtime when full pay was perfectly available? Noone else sees that as pushing it a little?

These details were not clarified on the radio news item that I heard on my way to work yesterday morning.
Interesting article... it wasn't really an assault after all.
I wish people, eg. this stupid driver, wouldn't react in such a ridiculous manner... another typical example of The Boy Who Cried Wolf :rolleyes:

Buses on Strike

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