Transport unions blame wildcat strike on frustration with Minister

Word about the wildcat strike that affected Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus spread "faster than a church-gate collection on a Sunday" among workers on social media, but it was not organised by unions, a union leader has claimed.

Stephen McKelvey, branch chairman in Cork of the National Bus & Rail Union (NBRU), said the first he knew about it was when he received a phone call at 4am on his way to the join the picket at Capwell Garage.

“There are no winners in a strike: the travelling public aren’t winning, we have schoolkids having to walk to school in the rain, they’re losing; we feel sorry for city traders because they are losing too,” he said.

“These fellows are not happy being out of work and without their wages, and the attitude of Mr Ross, saying he doesn’t want to get involved, well if he doesn’t want to be involved, he shouldn’t be Minister for Transport.”

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Pat Hartnett, Siptu's transport sector secretary in Cork, who represents 110 Bus Éireann staff in the city, said he had learned about the Kent Station picket from social media.

However, he said the fact that Dublin commuters were affected had shone a spotlight on the strike.

"[Ministers] seem to be going down the path that they don't give a damn about rural Ireland or any of the cities outside Dublin," he said.

“I don’t know if today’s unofficial action will bring things to a head but one thing it did do was that it meant the dispute got more media attention.”

Immunities

Secondary picketing – the picketing by striking workers of a premises not used by their employer – can be lawful, and the circumstances in which it can occur are set out in the 1990 Industrial Relations Act.

The Act provides workers with certain immunities from legal liability when they take strike action, but the immunities only stand as long as certain conditions have been met. The strike must be in furtherance of a trade dispute, the workers have to have held a secret ballot, and the employer has to have been given a week’s notice.

The 1990 Act, which for the first time set out definitions for primary and secondary picketing, says that picketing is lawful as long as it is peaceful and in furtherance of a trade dispute.

Secondary picketing is lawful where an employer who is not a party to the trade dispute has “directly assisted” the employer of the picketing workers “for the purpose of frustrating the strike or other industrial action”.

An example of this might be a picket on a factory that, for the duration of the strike, has agreed to produce the products that are not being produced by the employer of the striking workers because of their industrial action.

Where there is a group of companies, other companies in the group are regarded as separate employers for the purposes of the 1990 Act.

Employees of one group company should not picket another group company, save where there is an interchangeability of staff.

The decision by the NBRU and Siptu to rapidly disown yesterday's wildcat action reflected concern about the effect it could have on efforts to end the strike, rather than fears that they could be sued.