Unions

sovtek

Originally posted by bonkey
Are you talking CIE or Dublin Bus?

CIE is - unless my memory is failing me, which is entirely possible - an umbrella organisation covering Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann, the various other town bus services, and good ol' Iarnrod Eireann.

Now, really, if you can't think of a single loss-making route within all of that......

jc

Your memory is just fine

Sand

Actually, it appears to be everyone's problem.

Only when the unions is allowed to make it our problem - the whole point is that they should be prevented from doing this because they dont like doing their job.

Except that they are not acting in the public interest,

How is providing better equipment to increase efficency and reduce the overtime bill that the public are paying not in the public interest?

An ideological statement that neither the CWU nor An Post management would either acknowlege as correct or attempt to implement.

Tough - Seeing as the government owns the company the management and the union are their employees and if they dont like their jobs they can take a hike. Theres always someone else.

1) Unions can merge to form larger unions. The CWU is a case in point, and SIPTU.

Sympathy strikes are illegal arent they?

2) Unions desire a weapon for use in negotiations with management. Controlling national infrastructure is a sledgehammer where a screwdriver is usually the desired implement. Only in negotiations with Government does the ability to affect things on a national level come into play, and that's when larger unions like SIPTU come in.

Again, once the state companies are broken up and privatised the unions can negotiate any way they want because they sure as hell wont be able to stop the post. Another post company would simply take up the slack.

3) Privatisation is seen as an excellent thing by unions, after the Eircom deal, for completely nonideological reasons.

You mean when they get their cute hoor deals? Thats not a part of any privatisation deal worth implementing.

And they'll see fit to serve the highest-profit routes with the minimum of overheads.

Ah right - so all the buses will run the number 10 route then? A bus every 5 seconds?

Bollocks tbh. When there are too many competitors running the same route their individual profit falls to the point where other routes - even those supposedly less profitbable ones are more profitable.

Look at Ryanair and the safety issues with their procedures, for example. Now imagine this model applied to buses, and there you have it.

Damn, youll mean theyll do worse than kill 6 people in one saturday?

It's like taking Ryanair as opposed to British Airways.

Ah, caviar socialism:)

Now, really, if you can't think of a single loss-making route within all of that......

I cant - help me out here. Name a social route that a private company couldnt make a profit on?

Really - Im at a loss to find these social routes that its impossible to make a profit on.

capistrano

Every single one of the DublinBus routes should be profitable and a private bus company would be happy to take them on. I guess the urban BusEireann routes in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, etc. are also profitable. The intercity bus routes are also profitable and already have a lot of competition.

Maybe there are a few rural routes that need a subsidy, but the numberi s very small.

Talking of Unions, I like the way the An Post union first threatened the agreement to go back to work becasue they insisted the suspended temporary workers were also brought back to work. And then they complained that An Post wanted to hire more temporary workers to get over the backlog - becasue it affect their overtime. To hell with the fact that us poor suffering customers will have to wait longer to get out post.

Unions in AerRianta and CIE have really damaged the cause of unions in the past few months. I know people, who previously were sympathetic to unions, have become really anti-union lately.