Action over pay cuts hits 60,000 commuters on first day

Members of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) placed pickets at rail stations and depots around the country yesterday in protest of the unilateral imposition of temporary pay cuts by management.

About 60,000 people were affected by the strike including those travelling to the All-Ireland senior football semi-final in Croke Park between Mayo and Kerry. The temporary pay cuts, which ranged from 1 per cent to 6 per cent, came into effect yesterday.

Dart driver Joe Nolan, who was on the picket line at the Fairview depot in Dublin, said he was on strike because the company had taken unilateral action by implementing something staff did not agree with.

He said the company was trying to make out staff were refusing to take a minimal pay cut “when in actual fact we have given a huge amount in productivity over the last three years”.

Mr Nolan said the staff had agreed a cost-containment programme supposed to have run until 2016 and which generated more than €4 million in savings.

Come back for more

However, he said the company had come back looking for more nine months later.

“Over 3,000 people have left this organisation. We are doing their work. We slashed the wage bill, yet they keep coming back. Our people have had enough.”

He said in the past there would have been station staff in every station on the Dart line. He said there were now no station staff at weekends or in the evening.

He also said the only people around were those in the company’s revenue protection unit who moved from station to station and train to train.

“On the train itself, there is nobody other than the driver between Howth and Bray and Greystones.”

The current strike action at Iarnród Éireann is being undertaken by members of the NBRU and Siptu.

Siptu is the largest union in the company and represents about 2,000 staff in the 3,700 workforce. The NBRU has about 500 members in the company.

Other unions representing smaller groups of personnel have backed the controversial cost-saving plan.

The company has said that anyone rostered for duty yesterday and today and who does not attend for work will not be paid.