The new pay claim by staff at Iarnród Éireann is the first direct indication that the proposed deal to settle the recent Luas dispute is already spilling over into the rest of the transport sector.
The issue of pay in the broader State-owned CIÉ group was always going to arise this year as a period of austerity at Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann came to an end.
Staff at the three companies all experienced reductions in earnings during the economic crash as the three CIÉ companies faced the triple whammy of significant cuts in State subvention, falling passenger numbers and, at the time, higher fuel costs.
The scale of the pay proposals for Luas staff – which range from 8-18 per cent over three years have heightened the determination of staff to make up the ground lost since 2008.
It has also fuelled expectations among workers which were already on the rise on foot of repeated announcements by politicians of the scale of the growing economy.
Dublin Bus workers were already scheduled to go to the Labour Court next week as part of a pay claim while a separate process involving Bus Éireann was also in the offing.
Upped the ante
However, the move on Friday by the National Bus and Rail Union on behalf of its members working on the railways has upped the ante.
Staff at Iarnród Éireann agreed in autumn 2014 on a package of cuts aimed at contributing to a resolution of financial difficulties at the company.
This 25-month agreement – which involved cuts of between 1.6 per cent and 6.1 per cent – was scheduled to run until October this year.
However rail workers now want these cuts to end immediately. At the same time they are seeking increases of up to 25 per cent.
This claim includes an argument that the 8-18 per cent Luas settlement proposals now constitutes an “industry norm” in the transport sector.
A letter from the NBRU to rail management on Friday also raised an issue which had always been in the background of the Luas dispute, that Dart and locomotive drivers would want a similar rise in pay.
There is no immediate threat of industrial action on the railways over this pay claim.
However the NBRU have specifically linked their pay demands to ambitions by the company to introduce a higher-frequency Dart service.
The union specifically stated that its members would not co-operate with the introduction of this new initiative – pencilled in for next month by the company – in the absence of talks on pay.
Any move by the company to try to introduce this new 10-minute Dart service without agreement would almost certainly lead to industrial relations trouble on the railways.
