Irish bus workers defy unions and continue strike
By
Dermot Quinn
5 April 2017
Over 2,600 workers in the Republic of Ireland have been on strike at Bus Eireann—the national inter-county public transport company—for almost two weeks in a bitter dispute over the company’s unilateral implementation of cuts to wages and changes to work practices.
Over 100,000 people use the Bus Eireann service nationally.
All of the company’s routes throughout the country have been impacted, with school bus drivers likely to join the strike pending a ballot by the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU)—one of the two main unions involved in the strike.
Although Bus Eireann along with Dublin Bus and Iarnrod Eireann form part of the overall state-owned CIE transport group, the Expressway/Interregional service is run as a private company. Shane Ross, the Minister for Transport in the Fine Gael-led government, insists that because the major losses are being incurred by the private “Expressway” inter-city service, he will not intervene. Dismissing a call from Dermot O’ Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Railworkers’ Union (NBRU)—the main union involved—for the transport minister to intervene, Ross told the Dail (parliament) last week, “I have made it absolutely clear that my intention during the dispute is to keep as far away from it as possible and to leave it to the two parties involved.”
Bus Eireann bosses claim the company lost over €9 million in 2016, and is facing insolvency by May this year unless the cuts to wages and conditions are implemented.
On February 27, management unilaterally went ahead with the introduction of 55 cost-cutting measures. Many workers face a 30 percent cut in take home pay and overtime pay, which…