Dublin Bus workers threaten strike

part of the problem is this. drivers who start early drive their cars into the garage to pick up a bus, with the new introduction of the new services any driver finishing in town will have to travel 11km or there abouts to pick up his car and drive home and probably wont get paid for going back to the garage.
so now this driver has to make 2 journeys.
lay mans terms.
driver travels in from say bray to start at 6am. has to use his own car as theres no buses.
finishes in town at say 3pm
has to make own way out to back of airport to collect car.
then probably has to drive back through town to get back to bray as M50 would be car park.
up until today all routes in harristown probably with the exception of the 237/38/39/70 all had their breaks in the staff canteen in harristown garage.
AT PRESENT THERE ARE NO ROUTES FROM HARRISTOWN GARAGE THAT BREAK OR FINISH IN THE CITY CENTRE.
this garage has been up an running a number of years now. i did the caps the let you know what your not being told

so as it stands we all have no way into or back from work tomorrow?

MiniD - Yes that is a difficult one I totally see where you are coming from, but the big fear is if they accept this they will do the same for all the routes which will lead to a reduction in punctuality and reliability and nobody wants to see that. However breaking starting and finishing the 4/4A in the City Centre when it's terminus is Harristown IS stupid.

markf909 - Exactly, the thing that these people saying wow, so they have to travel to work like me and you don't understand is these drivers can't even start going home as they have to head back to the garage before they go home after their shif thas finished.

meanmachine3 - You are a sensible guy from the sound of things and you speak a lot of sense about what is going on. I don't see why they should mess with things at Harristown, the garage is performing very well, why would they want to start changing that?

jimmycrackcorm - Because the fact is that Dublin Bus workers stand up for each other. It's called support.

meanmachine3 wrote: »

with the new introduction of the new services any driver finishing in town will have to travel 11km or there abouts to pick up his car and drive home and probably wont get paid for going back to the garage.

As stated already in this thread, the driver does get paid for traveling back to the depot, and this 45 minutes is built into their daily duty. The only difference here is that the driver will not be driving an empty bus back to he depot, and will instead travel on another bus to take them there. The journey time on Dublin Bus timetables to Harristown is 35 minutes from the City Centre.

Unfortunately with operating a bus service, there needs to be flexibility. While it may have been the case for years that no Harristown driver duty started/ended in the city centre, it needs to be accepted that operating some routes, such as the 128, will operate more efficiently by drivers breaking or finishing at different locations. Harristown seems to be unique in that many of it's routes either terminate or break at the depot. Most other Dublin Bus drivers don't have that luxury, but accept that it's part of their job to operate certain routes or buses from various locations. It is worth mentioning, there are full subsidised canteen facilities for Dublin Bus drivers just off O'Connell Street.

If every driver on the 128 was to drive back to Harristown to start, break or end their shift, the timetable would be a mess and the current 10 minute frequency would not be possible.

how long is the strike for? One day two days? And is it going ahead?

meanmachine3 wrote: »

yes there is a canteen but what you may not be aware of is that some of the scum we deal with as drivers use that same canteen.

Isn't this a Dublin Bus canteen, behind Clerys, for Dublin Bus drivers?

harristown was built to get the buses out of the city ,ALL routes possibly with the exception of the ones i already mentioned that went up there had their schedules CHANGED so that the drivers could start/break and finish in the garage.

Harristown was build to house the extra buses in the Dublin Bus fleet, a lot of which are Euro duties. This new 128 route, which from what I gather is what this dispute is all about, is a brand new route, so these schedules are starting from scratch. It's different from the other routes in the depot, whereby it's an all day cross-city route, which doesn't pass the garage, so the option for drivers to change at the garage simply isn't there.
With this in mind, how do you suggest drivers should end or start their shifts, keeping the buses running to the timetable?

mickoneill30 wrote: »

For the 46 minutes each way do they come out of their 8 hour day or are they on top of it? So = 9hours 32 mins.

They are on top of it if the new proposals go ahead. Currently they are included.

thats the same canteen, i've seen the local whineo's eating in there amongst others. alot of routes were moved out of their garages due to health and safety reasons i.e. buses were parked to close together. there now has to be so much space between each bus( supposedly). routes that dont pass the garage but start/ break and finish i harristown include 17A and the 102 amongst others.
to be honest this is getting a bit tedious. i'm a bus driver on one of the busiest routes in the city .i know more about the workings, ins and outs of dublin bus than most people. unless your an employee of dublin bus then i'll have have an answer to almost everything that is posted.
to cut a long story short and to be quite blunt if the strike goes ahead aint nothing can be done. if it's called of count your lucky stars you can get a bus tomorrow.

it doesn't matter who goes on strike these days, be it nurses,taxi men, bin men etc. the public will always complain.
the average working week in this country is actually 39 hours. so thats an extra 12 mintues at least on top of what you've already said.
some shifts finish early while others finish between 4-6pm ,so yes alot of shifts do finish during rush hour.

i as a bus driver am sick to death of asking for a new schedule for the route i'm on and all i get is some cock and bull excuse.

in normal circumstances this would be a great idea but all the garages are full up. harristown is only at half capacity. in order to move the 128 to another garage you would have to move another large route out of there. again harristown is unique in everyway. it's routes,facilities and so on.
other garages should not be affected by this action unless drivers from harristown are suspended.
all this is now in the court of dublin bus senior management.
if the action does escalate senior management are solely to blame.

final thought for tonight.
once we as bus drivers are out of uniform we are exactly the same as every other commuter. we rely on buses to get us from A to B as well. we also have family and friends who also rely heavily on public transport so we are just as put out by the strike as every other commuter.

meanmachine3 wrote: »

we are just as put out by the strike as every other commuter.

No you are not because you are not trying to get to work during the strike.:mad:

What's the situation at other bus depots? Is the trip back to the depot included in an 8-hour shift or is it on top of the 8 hours?