Dublin commuters should by now have a very clear picture of the issues in dispute between the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) and Dublin Bus. The two sides have, after all, spent a great deal more time talking to the public over the airwaves than they have in talking to each other across the bargaining table.
The NBRU says that its members are badly paid. Dublin Bus says that it cannot afford to pay for the unconditional 20 per cent wage claim. Not for the first time in an industrial dispute, both sides are telling the truth. With wages of between £207 and £270 per week, the drivers are without doubt badly paid. It may be true, as Dublin Bus claims, that by working substantial periods of overtime drivers can achieve a fairly reasonable income but this is done at a major social cost to them and to their families.
The argument for a considerably better basic wage is unanswerable except in one respect and that is that Dublin Bus cannot afford to pay it. The problems with Dublin's public transport service arise from the fact that it is structured in such a way that no one can win. The management does not have the money to pay the drivers a decent wage and the general public gets an inferior service.
The only institution which has the money to pay for the NBRU's claim is the Government but it too, for another important reason, is unable to do so. Public transport in almost all major European cities is subsidised either by state or municipal authorities. In Dublin, that subsidy runs to six per cent. The subvention to London's privately-run buses is 15 percent; in Barcelona it is 39 per cent and in Rome 74 percent. There is, therefore, a case for greater government subvention of Dublin Bus.
Indeed this is recognised in the National Development Plan, which provides for £220 million to be spent on improving the Dublin Bus fleet and transport network. But the plan will take at least three years to implement and the emphasis is on capital expenditure.
It will not put money into bus drivers pockets and, unfortunately, their claim could not come at a worse time. In the coming weeks more than half a million trade union members will vote on the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness which is designed to give most of them pay increases of at least 15.75 per cent over the next 33 months. Inflation running at 4 per cent threatens to eat into this increase. Significant pay awards made to nurses and gardai have encouraged other workers who have not benefited fully from the current prosperity.
Should the bus drivers be made a special case and paid their 20 per cent increase the argument of secondary teachers, members of ASTI, for their 30 per cent claim would be strengthened. Under these circumstances, the whole concept of national wage bargaining - which has made such an important contribution to the current economic boom - could be put in danger.
It is an indication of how high the stakes are that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions intervened in the dispute last night with a new set of settlement proposals, even though the NBRU is not an ICTU affiliate. Hopefully these will provide the basis for an equitable settlement that will go some way to meet the drivers' aspiration for a decent basic wage without undermining the company's competitiveness or the prospects for a new national agreement.