The dispute at Iarnrod Eireann escalated yesterday. Cork services were paralysed and there is a threat of severe disruption to the Arrow suburban service from Kildare to Dublin today. About two-thirds of the Drogheda/Dundalk suburban services are expected to operate. Most other services are expected to operate relatively normally.
While efforts were continuing yesterday evening by SIPTU and the National Bus and Railworkers Union to persuade their members in Cork to return to normal working, the executive secretary of the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association, Mr Brendan Ogle, said he was in contact with drivers in Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus who want to take action in support of his members.
Mr Owen McCormack of the National Busworkers Action Group, a cross-union body, said bus workers supported the right of the ILDA to exist as a trade union. "In our dispute for a 20 per cent pay rise two months ago train drivers throughout the country gave us their support, including the ILDA, and we should remember that."
It is unlikely that even intensive lobbying by the group would result in industrial action by busworkers in the short term, but it is an indication of the potential ramifications of the current dispute.
Problems for Iarnrod Eireann began unexpectedly early yesterday when SIPTU and NBRU drivers in Cork decided to take unofficial strike action at about 4.30 a.m. because passenger train drivers were being asked to drive freight trains under the new agreement. The drivers were later called to a meeting by their officials, who tried to persuade them to return to work. Meanwhile, ILDA members arrived with buckets marked "ILDA Relief Fund" to collect money.
Similar collections were organised in Drogheda, Athlone and Dublin's Inchicore depot. Iarnrod Eireann condemned the "intimidatory presence" and collections as an escalation of disruptive action by the ILDA.
"Not content with causing cancellations directly their presence, which masqueraded as a support ILDA fund collection, was designed to prevent their driver colleagues, who have ensured services to our customers, from operating trains. Iarnrod Eireann deplores this cynical action."
The company urged members of the ILDA to rejoin the recognised unions and take advantage of the "improved pay and working conditions and enhanced safety" it offered. The company said at least two drivers had refused to go to work because of intimidation.
Mr Ogle rejected the claims of intimidation. He said that when ILDA members turned up as usual at Cork station to report for duty, there was already an unofficial picket by SIPTU and NBRU members. His members had been "happy to sit out" the dispute with Iarnrod Eireann until the company introduced "scab labour by SIPTU and the NBRU" to drive ILDA trains.
He made no apologies for using the term "scab". The ILDA "has no difficulty with any railway worker conducting their duties, but to conduct the duties of other workers is abominable. It has raised the temperature to boiling point."
He once more called on SIPTU, the NBRU, the Labour Relations Commission, the Minister for Public Enterprise Ms O'Rourke and the Tanaiste Ms Harney to protect the statutory rights of his members to representation by the union of their choice.
ILDA representative Mr Hugh McCarthy, who was one of the collectors at the Inchicore depot, said they had decided to collect funds when they heard it was being done at other depots.