MANAGEMENT AT Bus Éireann has questioned whether the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) has a valid mandate to engage in planned industrial action at the company in protest at a new cost-saving plan.
Bus Éireann yesterday wrote to the NBRU and Siptu urging them not to go ahead with industrial action at the company from next Monday as it would cause significant inconvenience for passengers and increase the company’s losses which it said were running at €500,000 per week.
Earlier this week the NBRU said it was reactivating its mandate for industrial action “in the light of the company’s decision to cancel a scheduled meeting last Thursday and its renewed threat to force through mass redundancies and cutbacks in services from next Monday without agreement”.
However Bus Éireann said yesterday the planned reactivation of the industrial action “raises serious questions as to whether the NBRU has engaged with its members in Bus Éireann before engaging in what would be highly disruptive industrial action for our customers”.
“This is because the industrial action is based on a vote of both Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann members that was undertaken in early 2009, which was well before Bus Éireann presented the trade unions with the detail of its cost recovery plan on May 6th, 2009,” the company said.
The company said the NBRU had not balloted its members on the detail of that cost recovery plan, but was still prepared to greatly inconvenience customers through industrial action based on a vote taken several months ago.
The company said the result of the ballot of members in Bus Éireann alone had never been released by the union.
The general secretary of the NBRU, Michael Faherty, last night rejected the companys assertions regarding the ballot.
He said a separate ballot of Bus Éireann drivers had been carried out by the union and this had been fully compliant with the terms of industrial relations legislation.
Mr Faherty said the company was trying to divert attention away from the real issues and was seeking to cause confusion.