SIPTU bus workers to support NRBU strike

by Canteen Kevin Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:04

The unions just want their share of the public cake. They will be bought off with a share of the company. Look at the ESB, they are going on strike not for wages but for 20% of their company. Its not their company it belongs to the people. So do Bus Eireann Dublin Bus and Iarnoid Eireann.

SIPPTU showed what a bunch of scabs they are during the Anti Bin Tax fight. A lot of them were only too happy not to collect bins. Lazy gits. It was also a SIPTU member who knocked Joe Mooney down. SIPTU are defending this psycho driver.

by Brian C Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:14

You are missing the point here. This was a decision of the Dublin Bus Branch Committee of SIPTU to support a strike, something that anyone who is supportive of the trade union movement should welcome.

The SIPTU bureaucracy is one of the most entrenched and right wing of any Irish union. You don't have to go as far as the bin tax dispute to show that. You don't even have to bring up the "no industrial action" sweetheart deal they have done with Connex. The union leadership had previously called off a strike on much the same issues by SIPTU members. That the Dublin Bus membership want to support their NBRU colleagues who are taking action is an important step.

You need to distinguish between the trade union movement and membership and the union bureaucracy.

by Joe Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:25

Kevin most people in Ireland could be members of a union and indeed a majority of purblic service workers are. So individual members are likely to hold a very large range of views indeed and some will be what you or I might consider to be quite obnoxious. That is because their unions of workers rather then self selected bunches of activists.

I'm also in SIPTU and I spent quite a bit of time on the bin tax blockades as did other SIPTU members I knew. Other SIPTU members who are bin workers were willing to take action at the time as they reckoned it was a good moment to act in their interests as well as ours (and as most are low paid workers who also pay the bin tax our interest was also theirs) .The SIPTU leadership on the other hand not only failed to do anything but the most token mumurings against the jailings but actively defused the situation on the ground on those occasions where it looked like workers were going to walk out of the depots.

If it was a situation where all those concerned realised their common interests and struck together we'd be able to look for a lot more than the abolition of the bin tax. That's not the case, unfortunatly the working class is endless divided into groups that don't recognise themselves in others. All too often solidarity is a slogan rather than a practice and its good to see the SIPTU busworkers treating it otherwise.

by seedot Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:38

I heard him speak at the Irish Social Forum amongst other events and, while he will state that ihe is not a rrrevolutionary socialist he clearly is engaged in opposing privatisation.

Good report Dave - do you know how solid the mandate they have is? Surely the earlier strike notice must be approaching 6 months now?

by anarchist Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:41

(related to the thread earler in the week)

See Dave? Its not that difficult to put up a post. Anyone can be an indymedia contributor. You can shape the content of the news on the site.

by TT Fri Jul 09, 2004 15:13

Why does it have to be a strike? How about another 'No Fares Day'? Surely that would make more sense.

by Joe Fri Jul 09, 2004 15:30

The no fares day was a good idea that I would like to see repeated but it unfortunatly it does not have the same impact as a transport strike. The power of a transport strike is as much if not more in the disruption it causes for every business and employer as it is in the revenue loss it causes Dublin Bus. Arguably the government is not that worried by 'no fares' causing a loss for a public service they want to privitise anyway.

by chris bond Fri Jul 16, 2004 17:40

I applaud the NBRU and SIPTU members for standing up to corporate beauocracy.Minister brennan is too indulged in Neo Liberal Fantasies to consider the practical implications of privatisation.Is a profiteering private company going to maintain non profitable routes or concessions for schoolchildren and the elderley?,I think not as a private company`s first duty is always to deliver profits to its shareholders.Transport must remain democratically accountable to the public.Look what happened after the privatised the transport system in britan.

Privatisation=Disaster, this is epitomized also by the break up of Telecom.