Staff at Iarnród Éireann to seek pay rises of up to 25%

Staff at Iarnród Éireann are demanding pay increases of up to 25 per cent following the recent Luas pay deal.

In a letter to management at the company on Friday the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) also sought an immediate end to the temporary reductions in pay introduced at the company in 2014 and which is scheduled to run until next October.

The union also said it would not co-operate with plans by Iarnród Éireann to introduce a higher frequency 10-minute Dart service “in the absence of dialogue on pay”.

The NBRU said it would not be attending talks at the Workplace Relations Commission on the proposed higher frequency Dart service which are due to resume on Tuesday.

In the letter NBRU general secretary Dermot O’Leary said the union wanted to put the company on notice that in addition to the ending of the temporary salary cuts, staff also wanted to pursue a pay claim.

He said this would include the payment of 6 per cent which the union contended was owed to staff since 2009 under a previous social partnership deal.

“In addition we are seeking pay rises in line with industry norms, reported to be in the range of eight per cent to 19 per cent.”

He suggested that this new “industry norm” resulted from the recent pay deal proposals put forward for staff at the Luas light rail system.

Iarnród Éireann rejected the pay claim put forward by the NBRU.

The company said it remained in a “very difficult financial position” with “annual losses, and an accumulated deficit of €135 million and is only paying wages and bills through loans.”

It said one of the measures taken was a temporary pay cut between 1.7 per cent and 6.1 per cent for 25 months which ends in October. This agreement was signed up to by all unions, it said. The NBRU’s comments were “not grounded in reality,” it said.

Mr O’Leary said the Luas dispute had for the first time brought into the public domain differences in terms and conditions between private-operated Luas and State-owned CIE.

The “partial lifting of the veil of secrecy has made for startling revelations” including that Luas staff were paid the Towards 2016 (social partnership agreement) transitional payment of 6 per cent

“Our members are having extreme difficulty in understanding how they, as workers in a public transport service, part-funded by the Government are somehow different to others in the same place.”

Mr O’Leary said staff in the State-owned rail company had strong objections to the planned introduction of a higher-frequency Dart service before a process examining past-productivity measures was finalised. He said NBRU members would not cooperate in the absence of talks on pay.

Mr O’Leary said any discussions with Dart or locomotive drivers “would, as a matter of course, include pay relativity between light and heavy rail”.

“To put it plainly, our members have had enough in terms of having, on the one hand, their wage packets raided whilst at the same time being expected to contribute even more through productivity without being rewarded.”

The 25-month temporary pay reductions put in place for rail workers in 2014 ranged from 1.7 per cent for employees earning €56,000 or less (74 per cent of employees) up to 6.1 per cent for those earning over €100,000.

Staff at Dublin Bus are also expected to highlight the new pay proposals for Luas workers - which range from eight to 18 per cent over three years as part of a pay claim with management.

A hearing at the Labour Court on pay for staff in Dublin Bus is to be held next week.