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IT’S BEEN ONE of the biggest stories of the year and it shows no signs of a resolution.
The ongoing Luas dispute continues to cause headaches for commuters, with more strike days planned this month and next.
Workers are looking for better pay and conditions, including improvements to sick pay, shift durations, pension arrangements and overtime rates.
Negotiations have been very on-off in recent months, with no end in sight.
In the latest twist, Transdev has suspended the sick pay scheme for Luas workers and warned drivers if they proceed with planned four-hour stoppages due to take place in the coming weeks they will be docked a full day’s pay.
The absence rate for drivers is currently running at approximately 12%, compared to an absence figure of about 4.5% last year.
Siptu organiser Owen Reidy told Today with Seán O’Rourke Transdev’s behaviour is forcing workers to continue their action.
“All they are doing is pouring fuel on the fire and making a difficult situation worse,” he said.
In reply, Transdev’s managing director Gerry Madden told the News at One the company had made drivers “very reasonable offers” and is “trying desperately to do a deal and be reasonable”.
As members of the public face the prospect of more service disruptions, we take a look at some of the key events that have taken place in the dispute so far this year.
January
Luas drivers voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action, with a Siptu representative saying that 24 or 48 hour stoppages were “quite likely”. Some 221 of the 223 employees who took part in the ballot voted in favour of industrial action.
Drivers were essentially seeking pay parity with Irish Rail drivers. Currently, the top Luas salary after 10 years of service is around €42,000. Siptu was calling for an increase in the starting salary to €35,000 – up from €32,000, rising to €60,000 after 10 years.
Reidy said at the time: “In talks over the last 18 months, Transdev has failed to offer an increase in pay for the next five years to Luas workers. The company position in talks in all forums has been that it will only offer pay increases in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The CPI is currently, and has been for some time, a negative figure. This means that unlike 96% of other companies across the state Transdev is not prepared to pay any increase in pay in excess of that attached to workers existing conditions of employment.
Transdev, however, said that the Luas drivers’ demands were unreasonable.
The claims being pursued by Siptu on pay alone are between 8.5% and 53.8% depending on the pay scale, and would cost Transdev €30 million over the five years of the Luas operating contract – €6 million per year. This is at a time when Transdev finds itself in a loss making situation. The loss incurred by Transdev in 2015 was €700,000 and we are predicting further losses in 2016.
Luas drivers served strike notice for four days in February.
Talks between workers and the company in the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) broke down at the end of January.
February
Transdev told workers who are taking part in strike action they will have wages for up to four days docked from their pay packets.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) asked both sides in the dispute to come in for separate negotiations.
Kieran Mulvey of the WRC told Morning Ireland that seeking a pay rise of 53% was “unusual, to be blunt”.
Mulvey said everyone is losing in the situation – drivers are losing pay, the company is losing revenue and 90,000 commuters are “struggling to get to work” every day the strike continues.
He backed up then Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe who had said it was not his place to intervene.
March
A planned strike for 8 March is called off.
Both sides attend talks at the WRC in a bid to avert three further planned stoppages on St Patrick’s Day, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.
Luas employees reduced their pay claim significantly. (They are now looking for a pay rise of 27% (down from 53%) which would see a salary increase of circa €13,000 to about €55,000 over the next five years.) Transdev said the revised demands are still beyond the company, but form the basis for further discussion.
The company cancelled plans to operate a private bus service on St Patrick’s Day after unions described the tactic as “scab labour” and “Thatcherite”.
The St Patrick’s Day strike was called off as talks continued.
Luas strikes go ahead on Easter Sunday and Monday, when state commemorations to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising are taking place, after workers reject WRC proposals.
Reidy said Siptu had compiled feedback from members in the driver grade as to why they have rejected the proposals, including the following:
April
A war of words broke out between Mulvey and Siptu chief Jack O’Connor.
Mulvey told Morning Ireland most union representatives would get a “standing ovation” if they returned to their members with the proposals put forward by Transdev.
O’Connor said Mulvey’s remarks “demonstrated his bias” against Siptu and rendered him unsuitable to mediate the dispute.
A Claire Byrne Live/Amárach Research poll found that 80% of people did not support the industrial action, while just 12% of people support the strikes and 8% said they don’t know.
Richard McCarthy, a Luas driver and shop steward, told TheJournal.ie Luas workers were being unfairly portrayed as “greedy hounds”.
“This isn’t a pay claim, it’s a negotiation. It’s the only forum we have every five years to change pay and conditions. This round of negotiation was supposed to begin in 2014. But the company delayed and then entered into protracted negotiations.
They’ve known for a long, long time that this was coming, even if the public has only really been aware since February.
One of the planned stoppages was called off to facilitate more talks.
Negotiations on a deal broke down after Transdev balked at a 26.5% claim by drivers. The three other grades at the company voted to approve a 13% claim.
Drivers have their pay cut by 10% for continuing a work-to-rule protest alongside strike action.
May
Strikes continued in May, with further action planned for later this month and June. Some of the stoppage times were changed to avoiding impacting students sitting the Leaving and Junior Cert.
Shane Ross, the new Transport Minister, said he won’t get involved in the ongoing dispute.
Speaking on the Marian Finucane show on Saturday, Ross said his department is monitoring the dispute between drivers and operator Transdev but is “not going to do anything about [it]“.
“The Luas strike is not something which a minister … can or should get involved in.”
He added that this is “a private sector company in a dispute with its staff” and he’s not going to “take out the state’s chequebook” to resolve it.
Later that day, on Saturday with Claire Byrne, Siptu’s O’Connor said it’s not true that the government can’t intervene.
There’s no one looking for [Ross] to use the state chequebook, we understand perfectly why that’s not an option.
“He said he neither can nor should, but he actually can or at least the government can, without taking its chequebook with it,” O’Connor said, referencing section 38 of the Industrial Relations Act 1990.
He said the new jobs minister, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, could ask an outside body such as the Labour Court to intervene if she believes it’s in the public interest.
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Jokes aside he must know something about Boris that Boris is terrified for us to know
@Daniel Bohan: Everything you need to know is right here: https://youtu.be/GNaWPV5l4j4
The man has his finger on the button and that’s why he is in his job.
@milton friedman: He’s certainly tapped into a huge portion of the population in the UK, in tune with how they think and feel. It makes his judgement of the aftermath of this all the more bizzare. Whatever about the actual trip, his non apology afterwards was a spectacular own goal and it’s clearly not gone down well with the general public, including many people that he was in tune with.
@Cian Nolan: It’ll be quickly forgotten.
@Sylvia O’Regan: If he’d apologised I think he’d have gotten away with it but I think too many Conservative MP’s and voters are angry for this to just to blow over. Big opportunity for Starmer at the next PMQ’s.
@Daniel Bohan: lots are saying he does have something on him.
@Marcus Suridius: less of having something on him, more like Johnson knows he is absolutely clueless without him, and would be easily played out of power.
@Brynþór Patrekursson: He used to work for murdocks pet, farrage, of course he has dirt on bojo. Totally agree on clueless.
@Daniel Bohan: bonga bonga parties with trump wee gate
@milton friedman: woke up early today and watched the full video….WOW!
@Denis Reidy: Really? Tell us when he worked for ‘murdocks’ pet ‘farrage’? Do some research for God’s sake instead.
He must have some seriously compromising information on Boris. probably him and trump in a Russian hotel getting weed on
@Daniel Bohan: wowzers. Thanks for that mental image!
@Daniel Bohan: That would account for their pi55 coloured hair.
@Alan Biddulph: nah the last PM screwed a dead pigs head. This would be nothing.
@Daniel Bohan: no Kompromat in this story! Cummings masterminded Brexit by sloganeering and in your face campaigning around the clock… maniacal stuff really. He not only knows which way the wind blows, he knows what is made of!!!!
@Peter McGlynn: Theresa May did no such thing!
Boris putting ambition before the people that are under his care. Clearly Dominic Cummings, a mere advisor, is more important than any/every party colleague and the public.
I watched him briefly *trying* to answer questions relevant to the plans going forward with the pandemic – blustering, totally out of his depth.
I can’t imagine many having confidence in him.
@Skybloo: it’s not surprising, Boris couldn’t give a fiddler’s about anyone bar himself.
Whether he was right or wrong it’s nothing other than a media witchhunt, they thrive on drama and bad news and move on to the next misfortunate after the previous one has been dispatched.
@Charles Coughlan:
Yes, the media in UK do like a witch hunt.
But I think this is rightly upsetting people. Many did not hold the hands of their loved ones as they died because of the guidelines. People died alone. Many didn’t attend funerals of loved ones. Many children and adults didn’t receive medical treatment for chronic diseases and illness including some cancer treatments due to the guidelines. Many suffered with COVID 19 while trying to care for young children. And then an chief advisor who is instructing people what they must do, implies by his excuses and BS that they were stupid to do so. That they made the wrong interpretation of the regulations. People don’t want to live with regret or feeling like they got things wrong to the detriment of themselves or loved ones.
@Charles Coughlan:
It isn’t though is it, very simple to understand the issue but obviously is too difficult for you.
Trump like nonsense of media bias is of course silly and ridiculous.
@Skybloo: very well expressed .. it’s the actions not the words that are important and Cummins failed
37,000 people dead and 22 billion cost to UK Exchequer. Not to mention, the country is about to embark on a new economic and political life.
The media as usual are focusing on the wrong thing.
Many Labour MPs have broken the guidelines. They simply just don’t like Cummings.
@milton friedman: They don’t like unelected bureaucrats in the UK. Cummings is the epitome of that – the tail that wags the dog. Combine that with his unbelievable levels of arrogance and it’s not hard to see why he is so hated across the UK and his position is untenable.
Plenty of other figures in the UK have breached rules, true. But they’ve all apologised and many have resigned/been sacked.
This will go on until it dies down or there is a material threat to Boris’ leadership of the Tory party.
@milton friedman: Yup, when Neil Kinnocks son travelled to visit him on his birthday the Guardian went with the line that the police were more or less harassing him over something so small. But when it’s anything to do with Johnson or the Tories they flip their lids. Lost all respect for that rag when they allowed an opinion piece on Johnson which insinuated that his illness was a ‘set up’ to get public sympathy. Also with Johnson, they were up to their necks with that story about Johnson’s row with his partner, the one where the neighbours was so scared and worried for Ms Simmons safety that in their panic they accidentally rang the Guardian first instead of the police. Funnily enough, they dropped the story with no apology to Johnson when it transpired that the neighbours were pro-remain activists and one had bragged on twitter 2 days before the ‘row’ that she had bravely given Johnson the finger as he passed her near their homes. This whole Cummings thing is nothing but simmering Brexit bitterness coming to the surface again. Childish, bitter buIIshit.
@Tommy Roche: one must the apparant rantings of the press from the facts. ..the facts speak for themselves…the PM allows and even encourages his advisor to make his own rules for his own conduct….simply FACT
@Tommy Roche:
I’d usually say that your childish, bitter rant would be better placed on the Daily Mail rag, but even they agree on how damaging Cumming’s actions are.
In fact, many staunch Brexiteer MPs are looking for Cummings to resign – one Brexit MP resigned over this. So your arguement re simmering Brexit bitterness doesn’t wash.
Also, with regard you and your other paid troll friend above stating how Labour MPs didn’t abide by regulations therefore what is the fuss about Cummings? – do you not see how this lacks any intelligence?? It should go without explaining – it doesn’t matter whether you are Labour, Tory, Lib Dems, SNP, Brexiteer, Remainer – the person should be held to account, especially if you have been awarded the honour and privilege of guiding the public.
@milton friedman: You really have an agenda, don’t you Milton? Every single Cummings article…really?
@milton friedman:
Labour MPs aren’t making rules for the public to follow, Johnson and Cummings are. Except they think they don’t have to follow the rules they are setting.
Simple to understand really, surprised you don’t seem to understand it.
@milton friedman: name the Labour MPs.
@Tommy Roche: Add the pathetic Robert Peston and the insufferable Beth Rigby to The Guardian and Mirror too.
@Tommy Roche: nail on head. Compare the demonising of Cummings who the Remainer elites despise with the media scrutiny given to Stephen Kinnock, Ian Blackford, Tahir Ali, Vaughan Gething etc.
@Skybloo: someone who doesn’t share your views is a ‘paid troll’ ? And what’s with the tiresome generic bland ‘Daily Mail’ comment? Have you researched that particular organ’s recent editorial shift on Brexit? Were you aware of its Sunday counterpart’s pro Remain stance? The fundamental question here is whether a BBC correspondent is entitled to air personal viewpoints or whether the organisation is politically impartial.
@Valthebear: Talk about missing the point of my comment. You need to lighten up on the juice there mate lol
Richard Nixon said once it’s not the act that gets you… it’s the cover up that will get you, Albert Reynolds once said … it’s the small things that will get you…. me thinks Boris will find out same
Hilarious to think that the BBC actually believe they have a respectable level of impartiality, any debates are not about finding solutions and agreement, they are merely designed to produce as much drama as possible under a majority left wing panel.
@Alan Currie: You must be having a laugh. BBC with majority left leaning panels? Not for Brexit. In fact anti-remain groups received a disproportionate amount of air time on current affairs programmes like Question Time.
@John R: how so?
Did he or his wife have the virus probably not
@Tony Mcgrath: how is that relevant? He clearly broke the rules.
@Connoroconner: which rule did he specifically break given that the health and safety of his child was at risk and latitude was allowed for the wellbeing of his child? His mistake was to visit another town on the pretext that he was testing his eyesight on the advice of his wife.
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair: He didn’t break the rules, he broken the law. How was driving 260 miles in a car witb his child when he was possibly illfor the well being of his child? In his position, he would be able to employ the services of the Govt to have his child taken care of. He did not have latitude to undertake that long distance drive. And you don’t drive 30 miles on your wifes birthday (& bring your child) to test your eyes tosee if you are fit to drive.
Stop falling for their spin. If Joe Soap had given that reason, they would have been turned back and received a fine. One if the Scientists had to resign when he travelled for some nookie (arguably just as essential for his wellbeing).
If he had just taken his medicine and walked, he could be back in in a couple months.
The blokes not even an MP. 4 labour MP’s broke the lockdown. Funny no mention of that on liberal news sites.
@Crispy Brown: Out of curiosity, how many of the 4 Labour MPs you mentioned are direct advisers to the British PM?
@Crispy Brown:
That’s a childish argument. It doesn’t make the situation any better whether Labour, Tory, Lib Dems etc … each one must be held to account. People died alone because of the regulations, didn’t receive treatment for other illnesses because of restrictions and regulations. Now they are being told that they, and other professionals, could have made all sorts of interpretations and changed the outcomes of their experiences. Cummings is the person drafting the instructions for the public in the UK during this pandemic, claiming to be in touch with the public. Instead, he has never been more out of touch.
I wonder if there will be less compliance by the public now.
@Crispy Brown:
Laughable the excuses people come up with for Cummings!!
@Metassus: that is a piss poor argument
@Crispy Brown: wordbrain?
Funny, I don’t remember Kaura Kuenssberg being replaced for breaking impartiality rules in the run up to the British general election. Must be a different set of rules for the Tories.
@Johnny 5: Absolutely. I’ve never seen a more biased reporter.
She stated facts. How is that a breach of impartiality?
@Connoroconner: the BBC only considers it impartial when the government is called out.
It’s not what Dom knows about Boris that’s keeping him in his job. It’s what Boris knows about himself.
@Brian Farrell: Great comment!
What dirt does he have on the those in charge?
Is he anything to Summer Cummings
@Colm: NO
Glaxosmithkline have a factory. Pretty big coincidence
If only he put half as much effort in protecting nhs staff.
She is a TV news presenter not a columnist or opinion writer. It’s her job to report the news in an impartial manner and not to express her own point of view. What if Sharon Ni Bheolain opened Mondays Six-One News with the comment, “I think Leo is a right bloody hypocrite for going to the park for that picnic and not practicing proper social distancing”. That would be something akin to what Maitlis did. The fact that so many agree with her point of view is completely irrelevant.
If Dominic Cummings is a civil servant and not a politician, can it not be argued that political impartiality does not come into thw equation
@Niall O’Sullivan: he’s a political strategist and political advisor so definitely not impartial.
There you go tell the truth and the B. B. C. don’t like it, so you get punished.
One set of rules for the haves and another one for the have nots….the fact that the BBC journalist reported this is a clear indication as to how the general public feel about their government… useless bunch of toffee pudding nosed incompetents.
@Richard Reynolds: Excellent article. Carole Cadwalladr is that rarest of breeds these days, an impeccable investigative journalist.
@Richard Reynolds: I literally had chills going down my spine reading that article
BBC ought to be ashamed. BBC can now be compared to FOX News, cowering before Boris like FOX cowers before Trumpton… An utter DISGRACE.
@Daniel Bohan. I must admit for about 2 or 3 seconds I thought you meant Bojo and Trump getting stoned but then I realized you meant getting hosed.
Well comrade Dom despite his Rasputin like role and being witch doctor of mass data propaganda….didn’t really convince anyone with his schoolboy smirky face.Thats the main problem..hes an incompetent Svengali..He seems to pedal theories that Russia and China attempt/attempted to use..the primary use of science in government,data manipulation,mathematicians,economic theorists..look at those countries to see how well that ll work out.He is dripping with Russian business connections..surprised he’s anywhere near government.
Censorship
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