Sir, – Yesterday’s strike by Irish Rail workers affected the travel plans of more than 150,000 commuters and four more strikes are planned over the next six weeks. This strike hasn’t adversely impacted upon me, however, had it done so, I wouldn’t have blamed the striking workers, rather I would have laid the blame where it ought to be: at the door of the Government and the voices of big business whispering in their ears.
This strike has been just one of a number of stoppages by public transport workers in recent years. Both the travelling public and the striking workers are, essentially, pawns in a plan being implemented by Government which isn’t in the least complex or opaque. It amounts to continually reducing the State subsidy to these entities until they reach a point where their management is forced to claim that the wage demands of the workers – in this case, a perfectly reasonable 3 per cent over three years after a decade of no pay rises – will leave the company financially bereft. This is, exactly, what successive Governments have done since about 2007.
This strategic underfunding is the common thread which binds all of these strikes, whether it be Irish Rail, Bus Éireann or Dublin Bus. It isn’t difficult to see who the potential victors are at the end of this plan; the private operators who will arrive down the track armed with the usual plans for increased efficiencies, streamlining, route rationalisation and of course, inferior wages and working conditions for their employees. – Yours, etc,
JD MANGAN,
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Stillorgan, Co Dublin.