NBRU condemns Irish Rail for playing footloose and fancy free with taxpayers’ money

national | worker & community struggles and protests | press release Wednesday November 08, 2017 22:14 by nbru - nbru

NBRU PRESS RELEASE - Nov 7th 2017

NBRU condemns Irish Rail for playing footloose and fancy free with taxpayers’ money as it had planned for a series of industrial action in advance of the completion of pay talks.

NBRU condemns Irish Rail for playing footloose and fancy free with taxpayers’ money as it had planned for a series of industrial action in advance of the completion of pay talks.

General Secretary Dermot O’Leary said:
“It is extraordinary that a State-owned Company would actually legislate for its own workers going on strike, at a time when it was giving off the impression that it was supposedly working with unions and the WRC towards a resolution to the pay dispute at Irish Rail. Workers on the picket line reading the papers today will be deeply angered that nearly 10 years after the last pay rise and with record passenger/revenue figures, management would treat them with such contempt. ”

Mr O’Leary went on to say:
“The revelation in today’s Irish Times that the Company has budgeted for up to five days of industrial action, would seem to support our view that the breakdown of discussions at the WRC was contrived by senior management, supported or perhaps directed, it would appear by the Department of Transport/NTA, in order to force Irish Rail workers onto the picket line, such behaviour is abominable and is repulsive to the social contract this taxpayer owned Company has with those it is obliged to serve and reinforces the notion of an “Axis of Collusion” to suppress rail workers wages.”