RTE reports:
Luas operator Transdev has warned drivers if they proceed with their four-hour stoppages scheduled for the coming weeks, they will be docked a full day’s pay.
Transdev has previously warned drivers that because of the intermittent strikes and an ongoing work-to-rule, they would consider a number of options including lay-off without pay, short-time working, and/or a reduction or elimination of pay on foot of partial performance of contracts of employment.
…In response, SIPTU has accused Transdev of of “pouring fuel on the fire”.
Divisional Organiser Owen Reidy alleged that the company was out of control and operating in a reckless way.
Transdev to dock full pay for four-hour Luas stoppages (RTE)
Previously: Between The Lines
UPDATE:
Meanwhile…
Thanks SaintThomas
sack the lot of them
i agree, they could certainly do with better management in Transdev
Hahaha
I’d say a few workers are regretting this level of idiocy now
Would you like it if people mocked your attempts to improve your own situation?
They deserve nothing more than my contempt at this stage, and a lot earlier than this too.
Sack every last one of the wasters.
Depends on what those attempts are, Tish.
There’s an awful lot of ‘useful idiot’ type of commentary, on this Luas pay business, borne out of the normalcy bias and ignorance that affects us these days. This is about an erosion of workers rights. The fact that so many talking heads don’t seem to realise this and instead insist on demonising the workers, is stunning. While the Luas isn’t all that essential in many eyes, these employees are still unionised workers. I know of a company that have fired their entire workforce (no union) and will now hire them back on less money and on contract. Stripped of all rights to pension etc. But this isn’t news worthy. This is the way the EU wants things now. How much of this is going on behind the scenes? And Transdev are going to be bidding for bus routes next. So expect them to destroy the rights of bus drivers next. It’s all part of the general looting of our resources before the inevitable collapse of the entire western financial system due to the rule of law being swept aside by lobbyists.
Unfortunately the union decided to conduct the pay-rise negotiations like they were buying a lamp in Marrakech. Start at 52% the haggle…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u75XQdTxZRc
Wasn’t that “52%” including things like the extra bereavement leave they were after?
Wasn’t that “52%” including things like the extra bereavement leave they were after?
There are THREE parties to this dispute.
I’m fairly certain Marx has little to say about consumer rights.
Actually, as a consumer, you are not a party to this dispute and you don’t get to have an opinion. That’s just one result of privatisation.
When Transdev crush their workers you won’t see any benefit. In fact, you might be next.
Yeah tanks
Absolutely correct.
And the truth that everyone feels under attack but some make themselves feel better by rounding on another sector.
It’s like the eldest son of a violent Father, repeating the abuse to a younger brother, and so on. Everyone loses, including the Father.
That is exactly what it isn’t like(?)
Totally agree. Absolutely amazing that people are taking the side of wealthy multinational versus workers.
The narrative has moved on from the crash where it was private sector employees complaining that public service workers being paid too much, as opposed to bank bailout. Now we are turning on the Luas drivers. Meanwhile the rich get richer.
Some people like to weigh up both sides of an argument before picking a side; I think many people who would be sympathetic to workers generally find the unions’ demands in this dispute daft.
“Meanwhile the rich get richer.”
– Transdev are losing money on their Irish operations, so no, not really.
“Some people like to weigh up both sides of an argument before picking a side”
Because people who are siding with the drivers haven’t weighed up each side? If all you have are sanctimonious platitudes, you’re probably wrong.
“Transdev are losing money on their Irish operations, so no, not really.”
They made a profit of over 850k in 2014 and won a €150 million contract since. Where have you read they’re losing money? A gerry madden interview?
“Absolutely amazing that people are taking the side of wealthy multinational versus workers”
– this would indicate to me that Goodnight Ireland has picked his/her side without weighing up the facts
I could say litetally the same thing to you; that there’s no way you could have weighed up the facts if you’re siding against Irish workers. In fact, you have helped spread the 50% lie and just lied about them losing money right now.
Transdev aren’t losing money on their Irish operations.
They’re returning a loss, which is something else entirely. Look at the license fees, consultant fees, rental etc that the Irish operation is paying the parent company. It’s an accounting loss, nothing else.
So as well as screwing Revenue, it’s now attempting to screw its workers.
And people are opposed to the strike? Utter stupidity. We should be supporting the Luas workers with everything.
+1
Can you lash up their accounts there Brother Barnabas,
You know, in the interest of transparency and all?
I could, Andy, but, to be honest, I’m not willing to spend the time doing so. Tell me how I can invoice you and, if I’m happy that you’re good for it, I’ll certainly do it. That’s not being evasive or whatever, just how it is (with me).
How is it screwing its workers?
Transdev are an international company with tens of thousands of employees. Group turnover in 2014 6.6B
+1
how are the Luas workers right being eroded?
Well, there’s section 40(3)(2) for a start…
“The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as
best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of
injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name,
and property rights of every citizen. ”
Seems to me that the Luas workers’ good names have been pretty much kerbstomped by Transdev management at this point.
Really? I don’t think that a company pointing out that they disagree with their striking employees really qualifies as the above.
Mark, can you show some actual real erosion of rights, rather than some philosophical left wing nonsense? My point is that there has been no erosion of rights simply because the workers have looked for an improvement in current pay and conditions, they are not striking against any changes to pay and conditions which has been imposed by Transdev. Its basic common sense.
“their entire workforce (no union)”
Surely they could join one anyway
‘This is about an erosion of workers rights’
So perhaps you could explain what is being eroded in this dispute?
So far as I could see, the drivers were looking for a lot more money than they were currently receiving & a lot more than other employees might receive.
I am sympathetic to the idea that generally our pay & conditions are under attack but if you use this for every single demand, then it is meaningless.
Maybe we should just nationalise the luas service, deal with pay negotiations under another haddington road type agreement and sack the board of transdev for not sorting this out earlier and instead doing things that they know will exacerbate the dispute?
I mean, if the luas is this vital to our economic recovery and all that, maybe we shouldn’t be entrusting it to some random private company?
+1 Be nice to have that €150 million we have them last year being spent by working class Dubliners in Dublin shops which goes towards wages of others working class Dubliners rather than sitting in a French bank gathering interest.
Is the whole 150 million sitting in a French bank account? Or will some of it be paid to Irish workers/ESB etc?
Yes. Every single penny. Every last one.
But its not really is it? Its actually being used to run the service, isn’t it?
Yeah you’re right. Transdev are getting none of the money. The poor little dears running that multi billion euro corporation have been bullied by 172 people earning between 30 odd grand a year into spending it all on wages so those greedy drivers can pay their mortgages.
No, you said all of the money was sitting in France, having repeatedly mentioned the 150mn amount they received. I asked whether some of it might be used to run the actual Luas service. You then proceeded to throw your toys out of the pram.
OK, buddy. Tell everyone again how the pro strike argument is that Transdev have to up their wage bill every single year just because they can.
*forever. You said the argument was that they have to up driver pay every year forever. AND you used the word ‘literally’. :D
why don’t we deal with the actual underlying facts of this sub thread? The 150mn, are Transdev keeping it all in their bank account in France? Yes or No.
Did I say it would all sit in France? Yes or no.
Yes
“Yes. Every single penny. Every last one.”
Ah. I shouldn’t be surprised you’re inept at picking up tone. (That was sarcasm. I don’t actually believe every penny from the contract they won will sit in a bank. Good lad)
Look, here’s the first statement you made:
“Be nice to have that €150 million we have them last year being spent by working class Dubliners in Dublin shops which goes towards wages of others working class Dubliners rather than sitting in a French bank gathering interest.”
It strongly suggests the whole 150 million was sitting in France. So i asked for a clarification. You decided to respond in the affirmative. When picked up on this, you respond first with a denial and then an insult. I get that you have difficulty with interacting with other people, i really do, but at least try to join in on the adult discussion without looking like the class clown, ok? Thanks Daisy.
“It strongly suggests the whole 150 million was sitting in France.”
It really doesn’t. That’s some genuinely terrible reading comprehension. It explains a lot.
[Amount] + [what we could do with it] + “…rather than sitting in a French bank gathering interest”
It suggests its all sitting in France. You’re an idiot with 9 year reading comprehension. Actually, 7 year old. Maybe that’s why we keep butting heads, you actually just can’t read or write properly?
Translation; ‘I know you are but what am I?’ This is hilarious.
See, this proves it. You’re actually thinking and translating like a 7 year old. Thanks for the confirmation.
You have bested me. I can’t handle the verbal skills and wit of someone who repeats what I said in slightly different language as if they said it. I need to time to consider this brand new and unique strategy before responding.
Finally some honesty. It’ll do you some good. Chin up petal.
:D You’re my favourite ball of string you deluded little lunatic.
You just never get tired of being shown up moyest
Sure, why don’t we have a forced nationalisation of Ryanair while we are at it?
We can go back to the glory days of £500 flights to London.
Non sequitur alert.
Well, well someone suggests the forced nationalisation of a private company , I felt it necessary to respond with a suggestion with a similar grounding in reality.
A private company who tendered for a contract to manage a state service.
It’s not a privatisation though. We own the Luas, just don’t hire anyone to run it and we can run it our selves.
One of the reasons that the Luas operation was privatised was that we have had such a difficult time with the different offshoots of CIE & similar over the years.
Expensive, heavily unionised, poor service delivered, cavalier attitudes to work, worker compensation out of line with private sector norms, no interest in innovation, etc. Speak to anybody who has worked in CIE, RPA or county councils around the country & you hear the same sorts of reports of an utterly dsyfunctional working environment where the end product is given a low priority.
It was recognised that Ministers are poor at dealing with unreasonable demands from unions.
Well done, Rob G.
Time now for you to get back to work – that Junior Cert won’t fail itself.
I’m pretty sure this is SIPTU’s desired end result alright. The state are a lot easier to push around than commercial enterprises that have to return a profit in order to continue to exist.
They lost public opinion early on with the ridiculous “oh but that was just our opening offer” gambit
To take one issue – why should their salary increase every couple of years, above inflation? Do they get better and better at driving a tram??
No Stephen. They work for a large multinational corporation. Their wages should go up every year, forever, in addition to inflation, until the company can no longer afford pay increases. That is literally the argument. It’s bonkers.
“That is literally the argument”
No it isn’t. Wow. That is crazy.
So why are they worth biannual wage increases for 10 years?
They’ve not received any pay increase for 5 years. They have come to the conclusion they should be paid the same as train drivers. They are asking for this rate of pay to be paid incrementally over a number of years as opposed to one go. That does not mean they think wages should go up “forever, until the company can’t afford it.” That is an *insane* interpretation.
From what I recall the original cause of the strike was Transdev telling them that they wouldn’t be getting any pay increases above the consumer price index for the next five years.
Over the last 5 years the CPI has dipped negative twice. The latest was at the end of 2014. The cost of living went down that year but overall it hasn’t changed much.
I don’t understand where the drivers get this idea that they should be paid similarly to an unrelated field. I also don’t understand why they feel that they can hold a company to ransom for extra conditions they did not agree to at the start of the contract.
and I don’t understand why they feel that their salary should go up more then inflation. It does not make economical sense to expect more reward without adding more value.
I can get behind the Tesco strike. Tesco are making changes to contracts that would see pay reduced.
The moral is, Don’t sign a contract unless you intend to live with it.
“I don’t understand where the drivers get this idea that they should be paid similarly to an unrelated field.”
Does that mean you disagree with people who compare their wages to Gardai and nurses?
Yes I do disagree with it. Nurses and Gardai get paid less but they have opportunity to progress.
However I do see why people would use that line. If someone compares their role to the pay of an unrelated role I can see how others would compare it to another unrelated role to show that A might be paid more but B is paid less. Either way both sides are irrelevant.
Ah yeah, the “they can afford it” line has never been trotted out. Or “they are a wealthy multinational”. Or “they are entitled to look for more than inflation”. Never ever.
…..OK……
Seems like a lot of the animosity towards the drivers is underpinned by the idea that workers should get paid what they ‘deserve’. That’s not how it works in a free market economy – you sell your labour for whatever you can get, and – in general – a for-profit business will try and pay as little as possible.
Good point, and I think the drivers have overestimated what their labour is worth.
Wages are a huge overhead for any business. It’s entirely possible that Transdev’s intrasigence is due to worries about tipping the whole enterprise into losses.
And if they start losing money, it’ll be taxpayers that pick up the tab when they pull out.
They’ve not overestimated their worth. They are dealing with an unreasonable company. Transdev posted profits of 850k in 2014 and won a contract with €150 million since. I seriously doubt any of this is about keeping in the black.
There are 167 Luas drivers. So if the company makes 850k proft a year, it would only take 5k pay raise per driver to wipe that out.
No, they’re looking for about a 4% increase year on year which, in the first year works out at less than 300k. It’s not true that they can’t afford it.
You keep harping on about Transdev making profits in 2014 – according to Transdev, they lost money in 2015, are set to lose money again in 2016.
By your rationale, the workers should have gotten a pay increase in 2014, and then taken a pay cut in both 2015 and 2016.
“Luas to make profit again in 2015”
http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/luas-to-make-profit-again-in-2015-a-year-ahead-of-target-30553688.html
If you can find a link from this year about their 2015 profits, please post it because I can’t find one. Again, they won a contract for €150 million SINCE that 2014 profit.
The only link I could find is from Transdev’s website – make of that what you will
http://www.transdevireland.ie/News.html?nid=7
Ok, if Transdev were to make a loss in Ireland in 2016, should the drivers take a pay cut instead?
So you accept that Transdev were lying about not being able to afford the pay increases? As for your question, if they can’t afford it they can’t afford it but I would like to think an ethical company would start making cuts to wages at the very top before coming to that conclusion. Gerry Madden proposed taking money off new people at the bottom to find money for pay increases. Did he propose cutting his own wage to find it?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/luas-operator-signs-five-year-150m-contract-1.1914395
While revenues for the company grew to just under €54 million to the end of last year, pre-tax profits fell slightly to €1.39m, although the company paid a dividend to shareholders of €1.68m.
i think the animosity comes from what is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be a fairly stable job, backed by massive public sector investment, that requires relatively little in experience or skill, has fair conditions, and the staff are looking for very large pay increase (whether you call that 22%, 26%, 50% etc, they are all large numbers). This comes at a time when similar pay increases are beyond other people’s expectations, and the Luas drivers reaction to not getting this pay increase has impinged significantly on other people’s ability to commute to work/college/leisure etc. That’s why people have a problem with it. And we’re called begrudgers and mé-féiners for not being happy about how the Luas drivers are conducting their industrial dispute.
Well I wouldn’t feel that way about it personally (broadly for the reasons I outlined above) but I can understand why they are wrecking heads. Given that the current setup we have for deciding pay leaves the luas drivers basically just having to look out for themselves (and me looking out for myself etc etc), I would suggest that your beef may ultimately be with the system rather than the drivers…
+1
+2
“This comes at a time when similar pay increases are beyond other people’s expectations”
Should your issue not be with other people’s expectations then?
No. Other people’s expectations are grounded in reality. Luas drivers are not. Unless you’re suggesting a broad based 20% pay increase for every worker in the state over the next 4-5 years? Have you thought about whether that would be a good idea and how it might impact on economic competitiveness and inflation?
No. Other people’s expectations are grounded in reality.
What reality is that Owen? Blind obedience that economic gains should go to the top is it?
Let’s just deal with this case and not your hypothetical scenarios of ‘every worker’. A lot of workers don’t have bargaining power in the form of unions.
In terms of inflation.. in this particular case, fares were increased on numerous occasions for the Luas, without there being any wage increases, when profits were up and there were record numbers of people using the Luas year on year.
Do you have any issue with the shareholder payout? Director’s salaries, no? Let’s discuss the ethics of this….
Ah why the fupp am I bothered asking? Of course you don’t.. you’re someone who has indicated that you think the quality of healthcare people receive should be a reflection of their bank balance.
‘you sell your labour for whatever you can get’
And the drivers are banking on being able to ‘get’ more by impacting upom the service the public receives. This works well when the public is sympathetic to the case put forward, less so when they are not.
Listen, scrap the luas or whatever ye call the yoke and bring back, the old time trams.
Back to the future as usual.
Problem solved.
Yeh cos Dublin tram drivers never went on strike back in the day..
#1913lockout
Wait’ll TTIP is signed. Unions Schmooions.
Transdev(Veolia) really are on the back foot here because there is a contractual clock ticking. Issuing threats like this is downright bizarre.
I have a question. Given the profit margin, why was fare increases needed? It sure as hell didn’t go on worker’s salaries.
What contractual clock is that soq? What exactly does it say?
I experienced the Miners’ strike in the UK and it was one of the few things that I agreed with Thatcher on at the time. I hope Transdev stand their ground. A lot of people in this country who lost their jobs in the recession didn’t have massively well paid union bosses to back them up. Similarly those who kept on working with 50% pay cuts and no pensions managed to drag the country back on its feet. These drivers are taking the piss and I hope it bites them on the arse
Oh right. Everyone should be dragged down to the base level of subsistence wages.
This isn’t always binary.
about time they should have done this from day one, u have a right to strike but u dont have a right to a salary if u do.
‘Cup of tea’ says –
” It does not make economical sense to expect more reward without adding more value. ”
In what way would it make sense economically?
You mean financially, for the particular company, not economically… as the current model we have, sees employees as costs.
Economically what makes sense is increases in wages for middle /lower income earners. This would benefit the economy as a whole and makes more sense.
Here –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8swuwO_E8U
Wage increases across the board would lead to inflation, and a loss of competitiveness internationally.
That’s not true at all Rob G.
This is related to minimum wage and general wage increases –
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/07/23/misconceptions-raising-the-minimum-wage-does-not-automatically-lead-to-inflation/
I’ll dumb it down to this bit –
‘These large profit margins make it easier for firms to raise wages without raising prices’.
As I mentioned, prices were raised on several occasions for the Luas, without the justification of increased wages…not for the workers at least.
That link relates to raising the minimum wage (which is a separate argument; Luas drivers earn much more than minimum wage).
‘These large profit margins make it easier for firms to raise wages without raising prices’.
– Luas made a loss last year, and is set to make a loss again this year, so I don’t think that can apply in this instance.
I did say the article was about general wage increases also.
‘Luas made a loss’.
Transdev Rob, Transdev
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/luas-firm-on-course-for-loss-of-over-870000-this-year-34170911.html
That’s an accounting loss.. they paid over 1.2m to shareholders in 2014. Revenue was €48.8m. They’re certainty not blaming a lack of passengers on the loss.
Here’s the reason they’re giving –
The company blamed different billing structures within its new contract with the Rail Procurement Agency (RPA) for the declines in revenue and profits
Do you know how that works, exactly? How the billing structures with the RPA are causing a loss? I can’t find any more information on that and that article is as dumbed down as you can get..
I don’t understand what they’re doing with their books.. but I would imagine that has an effect on their tax liability also.
“Wage increases across the board would lead to inflation, and a loss of competitiveness internationally.”
These one liners are great Rob..
No mention of productivity or the labour share of income.