Threatened Luas Strike.

Remind me, how many LUAS strikes have there been since it's inception and how many CIE ones?

It's like sampling 1000 apples and finding 999 are good but 1 is bad, therefore saying that proves they are all bad.

bruno1x wrote: »

Look at it positively , the only way to know if the government are telling the truth about the economy being on the up is if they grant this pay rise. If they don't get the pay rise we know the economy is still in trouble.

The economy is on the up, but that doesn't mean that the country can afford to start splashing crazy amounts of money around. Is there scope for an increase? Probably Yes, on the scale of 30%? No.

The funny thing about Irish politics is it always goes in cycles, a government spends too much by spending excessively and keeps doing it until it's dying days, the next government is left with virtually no money and has to deal with that fact, just when the economy picks up, the people then call for money to be splashed around en-masse and then moan why austerity is back a few dail terms down the line.

Go read what Mr Martin and Noel Dempsey have been saying in recent weeks, you would never think they served in office when the banks and the property developers run amok. They appear to think the Celtic Tiger was some great creation solely by themselves whilst the collapse that followed had nothing to do with them and was to do with simple bad luck rather than how they ran the country. Only this week Dempsey is moaning about the lack of infrastructure for flood protection being built over the past two decades, this from a former minister of the environment from a party that was in power for the vast majority of the last two decades!!

But it didn't happen, because every time there was a dispute, when this country had more money than at any other point, the money went into the back pockets of unions, staff members and the public sector .

You can imagine a conversation in Bertie's time was like this:
"Hello Minister, we are going on strike next week"
"That's okay, Mr Union, how much money would you like to not strike."
"We'd like x."
"Okay, we will give you that."
"Will there be any conditions or anything we have to do in return"
"No, just don't strike so we look good and curry favour with the public sector."

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

A company : state / semi state / private are all set up to provide a service. But they all want the same thing. Money and or profit.

If a company wants to set up their own commercial ventures, they can do what they like with them. That is their responsibility, their money, good luck to them, I wish them all the very best for success since running a business with no funding is not easy.

However companies that are set up solely to provide a service to the state, should have their one and only priority to do that, above all others. That is the whole argument for publicly run public services. Self interest belongs in the commercial world of private companies who are self-funding and are not state supported.

An employee: is someone who goes to work everyday to do their job but only for money. Nobody is going to do their job for free no matter how much they like it. So fair play for luas looking for their rise. I just can't see them getting that much at all. So cie or no cie its all the same.

Of course, at the end of the day however much you dress it up most employees number one priority when entering the workplace is to get the best conditions they can for themselves. Anyone who says otherwise is not being completely upfront unless they work in the charitable sector for example of community projects.

I don't deny that there is some scope for a rise for LUAS drivers, but quite frankly they do not deserve to be paid the same as Irish Rail drivers and what they are looking for is complete greed. Nobody anywhere deserves a raise of that scope and far from defending them, I'm actually angry that they are doing this, especially when they do it over an election period to hold the whole country to ransom.

This country is in desperate need of decent public transport infrastructure, but time and time again as soon as the country has even a small amount of money there are demands for huge increases in certain areas and pay etc. This is repeated throughout the economy, This then reduces the pot available for such infrastructure projects and people wonder why it's crap, then the unions wheel out the lines about the government should spend more money and we're back to the days of Bertie and Cowen again.

The trouble is whilst the economy is picked up, it's not awash with cash and already I feel like people are saying "The recession is over, lets get back to how it was before the recession." but the way things were before the recession FAILED which is the whole reason it happened in the first place. People in this country repeat the same actions time after time and they wonder why they get the same result. Of course there is more cash to spend now, but it has to be spent carefully with small, gradual, responsible increases rather than huge spending that will create another boom and bust.

Still, out of all of the private operators in Ireland this if it goes ahead will be the first strike by any of them in the transport industry and believe me, many of them are unionized as well, so to say that one strike means everyone is the same is flawed logic.

If I turn up for work 1000 days in a row on time and on day number 1001 I am late, does that mean I am an unreliable person that should be treated like someone who has been late 50 times in 1000 days, because my one late proved that I am a person who will turn up late on a regular basis because I am the same as that person?

A private company won't operate without a good profit for themselves whereas cie just want to get by. A big difference if you ask me

That's way too simplistic and you know it is.

A private company has to be very efficient because at the end of the day if they make a loss and run out of money the company ceases to be. Any profit is normally distributed to shareholders by increased dividends etc.

A public run company does not have to be efficient because due to the states backing, it would never be allowed to fail and the staff know this. Any profits are normally distributed to staff by respect of higher salaries and pay increases.

The real difference in public and private companies is a lot of the former tend to be run for the staff, whereas a lot of the later tend to be run for benefit of shareholders. Neither model is perfect, that's why you need regulation and things like tendering in public transport, to stop either shareholders or staff putting their own interests above that of the public.

Any company that has a monopoly, be that public or private will always use to exploit that monopoly to some degree, whether it's for commercial gain, shareholder gain, self interest or staff gain. Anyone who thinks that private companies or public companies who are left alone to run transport will run services solely for the benefit of the public is quite frankly deluded, neither model can work without proper regulation.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

I'm sure somewhere there will be an agreement for bus and trains not to accept any luas ticket during the strike. As it was with busses and Irish rail when they went out.

There is no chance that Dublin Bus will accept LUAS tickets, they should not have to, but if extra services can be laid on that might be a possibility, since people will still need to travel.