Luas operator Transdev is in a grave situation as a result of ongoing industrial action at the tram service but is not looking at laying off drivers, the company’s managing director has said.
As strike action over pay and conditions again halted Luas services and affected some 90,000 people in Dublin, Gerry Madden said there remained a significant gap between what the company could afford and what the workers were seeking.
New figures show Transdev incurred financial penalties of €414,000 as a result of services being cancelled due to strikes in the period to March 27th. The figures were provided in recent days to independent TD Joan Collins by the National Transport Authority.
Authority chief executive Anne Graham said the contract between the State and Transdev provided for deductions in contractual payments for the non operation of scheduled services.
Further strikes which have taken place since then mean that the actual scale of fines which the company will face as a result of stoppages by staff will ultimately be significantly higher.
The financial penalties imposed on Transdev will have been offset to a degree by savings on wages not paid to striking workers and the non-payment ofan annual bonus of 6.5 per cent due to staff this year.
Mr Madden told RTÉ News at One the strikes to date had been disruptive but were not bringing about the demands the workers were making.
He said the company was not looking at redundancies but the measure has been “signposted”.
“I don’t see anything like that happening within days, I’ve got a meeting on Monday with our legal team,” said Mr Madden. “I want to explore what means we have to try and resolve this dispute.
“I still would go back to the point that the best way to resolve a dispute is in the conventional way, with reasonableness.”
Transdev had told staff ahead of the strike that there will be one last chance to resolve the dispute before “serious consequences arise”.
It warned that long-term job security and decent pay and conditions will be “compromised” if industrial action continued.
Siptu organiser Owen Reidy on Friday said Transdev has effectively locked them out of talks and that the union “will not beg for talks”.
He told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland “we have not been in touch with them since we served notice on 11th May. But we’re not going to beg for talks. We said we’re available for talks, but it seems Transdev, after 19 days having cut off the talks, don’t want to negotiate.
“We don’t know if they want to humiliate or force their own employees into submission, but that won’t happen.”
Mr Reidy said it was “19 days since Luas management broke off negotiations with us, they need to decide to they want to resolve this dispute or not.
“ Since that time they have spent their time cutting pay by 10 per cent, threatening to take people off the pay roll, forcing people to work through their breaks and not facilitating people with their annual leave,” he said.
Full list of scheduled strikes:
- Friday 20th May 2016
- Thursday 26th May 2016 - 4 hour stoppage (3-7pm)
- Friday 27th May 2016
- Thursday 2nd June - 4 hour stoppage (3-7pm)
- Friday 3rd June - 4 hour stoppage (9am-1pm)
- Tuesday 7th June - 4 hour stoppage (9am-1pm)
- Wednesday 8th June - 4 hour stoppage (6-10pm)
- Thursday 9th June - 4 hour stoppage (6-10pm)
- Friday 10th June - 4 hour stoppage (6-10pm)
