LOCOMOTIVE drivers hope to meet their unions this week to discuss how they can best be represented in negotiations with Iarnrod Eireann.
The chairman of the National Locomotive Drivers Committee, Mr Brendan Ogle, says they will insist that any vote on changes in their working conditions must be confined to locomotive drivers.
He was speaking last night after about 50 drivers met in Dublin to discuss the situation following Wednesday's marches and stoppages by CIE workers.
The drivers represented about 300 colleagues from depots around the State.
This morning the CIE unions will meet management to agree a joint chairman for their negotiations on the group's viability plan.
When the last productivity plan was negotiated in Iarnrod Eireann in 1994, drivers felt they lost out because their votes were aggregated with those of the company's other employees.
Mr Ogle says the drivers "commend the trade unions for the stand they have taken in refusing to negotiate on the basis of Building the Future [the viability plan for Iarnrod Eireann]".
He called on the unions to ensure that, when negotiations take place, drivers' existing earnings are protected by consolidating regular overtime pay in the basic salary structure.
Locomotive drivers regretted the inconvenience caused to the travelling public by last Wednesday's stoppage, he said. Mr Ogle, who addressed the marchers outside Leinster House, added that the NLDC had not been involved in calling for the stoppage or in organising it.
The NLDC is a cross union grouping of drivers and has no negotiating status in the talks. It is not expected to seek representation in its own right, but rather to ensure that drivers' representatives within the unions are directly involved in any negotiations.
The NLDC is the best organised of the rank and file groups within CIE and could pose a threat to official union structures if progress is not made in the present talks. However, its appeal would be extremely limited among other rail workers.
Unlike some other sectors, drivers are not expected to be seriously affected by redundancies or redeployment, but they will lose heavily from reductions in overtime. Current basic pay is around £13,500, but most drivers earn at least £10,000 a year in overtime and various bonus payments.
If unions and management can agree on an independent chairperson for their talks today, this would represent major progress in keeping the negotiations within the normal industrial relations framework.