BARRY ROCHE
Bus workers on the picket line in Dublin yesterday rejected a notion that their industrial action was unlawful.
Bill McCanley, a member of Siptu who joined fellow strikers outside Phibsborough Dublin Bus depot at 4am, said he believed "provocative commentary" sent by the management of Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann in legal letters to the unions had had the opposite effect to what the companies had hoped.
The letters to Siptu and the NBRU stated that if industrial action went ahead the bus companies would “have no alternative but to issue proceedings immediately against you seeking damages for the losses suffered as a result of this unlawful action”.
Mr McCanley said the drivers “won’t be intimidated by that sort of stuff”.
He said the union members had completed their ballots in the “correct” fashion and that they were engaged in “a trade dispute”.
Liam Weston, Siptu shop steward for Dublin Bus in Phibsborough, said the drivers regretted any inconvenience caused to commuters but insisted the strike needed to go ahead.
“None of the drivers took the decision lightly,” he said. “A lot of these drivers see the same passengers every day; they don’t want to disrupt their customers.
“Although we are fighting for our own rights, we are also fighting to keep public transport public. Passengers suffer ultimately.”
In Cork, some 50 bus drivers drawn from Siptu and the NBRU were on picket duty at the Capwell garage where some 150 buses stayed parked for the day.
NBRU branch chairman Stephen McKelvey said the drivers “honestly don’t want to be here and we don’t want to be discommoding the public on a bank holiday weekend but we were left with no alternative as a result of the Government proposal.”
Siptu shop steward Pat Hartnett was dismissive of Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe's promise that no Bus Éireann or Dublin Bus driver would lose their job under the privatisation plan.
“The Minister at the moment is telling us that he is guaranteeing us our contracts but that’s only word of mouth – that Minister could be gone in the next election in 12 months’ time,” he said.
NBRU national executive member Ger O‘Donovan said they believed the opening up of 10 per cent of routes was a move designed to attract private bus operators from the UK.
“At the end of the day, none of the private operators here in Cork are going to get any of these routes. They need a €30 million a year turnover and they don’t have that money behind them,” he said.
“It’s going to be the big private operators from across the water – that’s the whole idea behind this.
“It is 10 per cent now but next year it will be 20 per cent and before we know it, 50 per cent of our routes will be gone.”
Leonard Kelly, a NBRU national executive member, said it would be the travelling public who would ultimately suffer, because the private operators would focus on profit rather than on providing a social service.
“Privatisation is going to eliminate that social service element that Bus Éireann provides for elderly people living in isolated rural areas who are dependent on bus service for their daily needs.”
