Should unions be forced to guarantee service during bus strikes?

Stephen15

Personally I think unions should be madequate guarantee some sort of limited service during strikes they seem to be becoming a very common occurrence these days with the current batch of db strikes and more to come personally I think public transport is a socially nessecary and some sort of skeleton service should be provided. While workers do have a right to strike they don't have to make commuter lives a misery. Most other countries have minimum service dusing the uk springs to mind.

Tin Roofer

Strikes serve a purpose - turning public opinion against the strikers. A skeleton service would dilute that.

howiya

I don't know where you'd start with deciding what sort of skeleton service to run. A double decker can only carry so many people. One or two on a route at rush hour wouldn't be much use. Nearly better off knowing that you definitely can't get a bus rather than getting to the stop and not being able to get on already full buses

Vic_08

Stephen15 wrote: »

Personally I think unions should be madequate guarantee some sort of limited service during strikes they seem to be becoming a very common occurrence these days

They aren't.

Stephen15 wrote: »

with the current batch of db strikes and more to come personally I think public transport is a socially nessecary and some sort of skeleton service should be provided. While workers do have a right to strike they don't have to make commuter lives a misery. Most other countries have minimum service dusing the uk springs to mind.

It might spring to mind but it is not true. But don't let the truth get in the way of a stupid argument, nobody else here does.

Also you can't be on strike if you are doing your job, who is going to decide which staff get to work (and get paid) and which don't. Unworkable.

That reminds me:

To any of the thick fukkers out there who asked a bus driver for another company over the previous days "why are you on strike" or a ruder version thereof; the answer is I'm obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't be driving this bus.

Vic_08

howiya wrote: »

I don't know where you'd start with deciding what sort of skeleton service to run. A double decker can only carry so many people. One or two on a route at rush hour wouldn't be much use. Nearly better off knowing that you definitely can't get a bus rather than getting to the stop and not being able to get on already full buses

Similar to the Luas strike, that all the buses were running normally didn't stop there being issues for luas users as there wasn't near enough spare capacity.

Same goes for the brilliant idea that having lots of different companies running different routes, the people using the route not running aren't going to magically stop wanting to use that route and even if there is another within walking distance it is not going to have spare capacity to cope with a large increase.

goingnowhere

Minimum legal service levels are fairly common in Europe

Spain, always a strike on in Barcelona anytime I visit, but makes little difference

_Brian

goingnowhere wrote: »

Minimum legal service levels are fairly common in Europe

Spain, always a strike on in Barcelona anytime I visit, but makes little difference

There would be little point in a strike that you don't notice.
Withdrawal of service and the resultant problems it causes is part of the process.

The current Dublin bus strike has an enivitable outcome that was set back with the Luas settlement.

Hilly Bill

Stephen15 wrote: »

Personally I think unions should be madequate guarantee some sort of limited service during strikes they seem to be becoming a very common occurrence these days with the current batch of db strikes and more to come personally I think public transport is a socially nessecary and some sort of skeleton service should be provided. While workers do have a right to strike they don't have to make commuter lives a misery. Most other countries have minimum service dusing the uk springs to mind.

Wouldn't that defeat the point of a strike?

Kyleboy

goingnowhere wrote: »

Minimum legal service levels are fairly common in Europe

Spain, always a strike on in Barcelona anytime I visit, but makes little difference

That's a great idea, have a strike that makes little difference, brilliant.

Stephen15

Kyleboy wrote: »

That's a great idea, have a strike that makes little difference, brilliant.

It probably dosent make much for him as a tourist who isint much of a hurry but if your a commuter

Atlantic Dawn

Refusing to collect fares and running the service as normal would be a better solution, would not put the public as much against them.

eeguy

DB can barely handle the situation at full service so I doubt they'd be any use with a reduced service.

magicbastarder

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Refusing to collect fares and running the service as normal would be a better solution, would not put the public as much against them.

going on strike is not considered gross professional misconduct, or similar. but i would bet that a bus driver waiving fares would be.

howiya

I was in France during the euros and there were plenty of train strikes ongoing but they also didn't seem to be all out strikes. Got an email the night before one journey saying the train would run as normal. A friend travelling on a later train wasn't so lucky. Another day I only found out a train was cancelled by arriving at the station.

These were intercity services so generally there's room on the next one even if you have to stand.

Not as easy to have a skeleton service in a commuter scenario. DB carry 400k passengers a day apparently. A skeleton service would just provide uncertainty for most of those 400k. Better off with an all out strike in my opinion

I wasn't too put out by the strike itself, Wednesday night inconvenienced me a little but I'll expect the early close this week so that'll be grand. Haven't seen too many horror stories either. People seem to have coped. Nobody even mentioned the strike in work on Thursday/Friday

devnull

Didn't really effect me really, my commute doesn't involve a bus 90% of the time.

Aircoach were a little bit snowed under at times at the airport but did pretty well.

Main issue was traffic.

Stephen15

What about the idea of running a Sunday service on strike days

JayRoc

Boards.ie....a place where people actually discuss ways that workers can strike without causing inconvenience.

Stephen15

magicbastarder wrote: »

going on strike is not considered gross professional misconduct, or similar. but i would bet that a bus driver waiving fares would be.

Isint that what unions are there for to defend and stand up for workers doing that would nearly save db money as they have to pay nta fines or leap card refunds.

magicbastarder

there is a (well, i wish) universally respected right to strike. which is withdrawal of labour.
the suggested alternative is not a withdrawal of labour, it's supply of labour while neglecting a very specific (and important) aspect which is not historically recognised.

Stephen15

magicbastarder wrote: »

there is a (well, i wish) universally respected right to strike. which is withdrawal of labour.
the suggested alternative is not a withdrawal of labour, it's supply of labour while neglecting a very specific (and important) aspect which is not historically recognised.

Does that mean the right to strike isint respected in most European countries since a limited service is provided.

magicbastarder

I don't know the details of what the limited service involves, but if it's say 80% of staff striking, that's a qualitative difference from 100% of staff turning up and deliberately 'misperforming' their role.

KingBrian2

No the objective of the strike is to ensure better working conditions so that means no service. The city can still function without buses on the street.

Kyleboy

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Refusing to collect fares and running the service as normal would be a better solution, would not put the public as much against them.

That's been done before, can't be done anymore

hmmm

These are not workers being locked out by some capitalist ogre, these are workers who are better paid and have better security of employment than most of their passengers, who want an increase in their pay. The public have a right to a decent system of public transport, and if these workers who are in a very privileged position are unwilling to deliver it, then the government should be looking for alternatives.

Whether that's no strikes on monopoly public services (including the ESB etc), or some form of private competition.

KingBrian2

JayRoc wrote: »

Boards.ie....a place where people actually discuss ways that workers can strike without causing inconvenience.

Mitigating the consequences of a strike for everyday users is neutral territory. Business and the paying public have to find an alternative route to work or to get around the city and are we expected to put up with this disruption to our lives.

Kyleboy

hmmm wrote: »

These are not workers being locked out by some capitalist ogre, these are workers who are better paid and have better security of employment than most of their passengers, who want an increase in their pay. The public have a right to a decent system of public transport, and if these workers who are in a very privileged position are unwilling to deliver it, then the government should be looking for alternatives.

Whether that's no strikes on monopoly public services (including the ESB etc), or some form of private competition.

How do you know they are better paid than most of their passengers?

BoatMad

The simplest way around this is to ensure that monopoly are broken up. It's the monopolistic nature of DB that facilitates mass disruption

If most routes were franchised out to a variety of operators by the NTA , then a vibrant multi company bus system would exist. In a strike there would be plenty of busses to then temporarily take over the duties of the striking busses.

This no different,mis I'm a logistics company contracting out my delivers. , if one of my carriers goes on strike , I can switch my business to another

Customers on Dublin bus are actually in effect customers of the NTA , who contract Dublin bus to carry its passagners. A dispute between a bus company and its workers may rightly affect that company , but it shouldn't affect the NTAs customers

Del2005

hmmm wrote: »

Whether that's no strikes on monopoly public services (including the ESB etc), or some form of private competition.

The Gardai have a no strike law yet they all managed to get sick the same day.

Kyleboy

BoatMad wrote: »

The simplest way around this is to ensure that monopoly are broken up. It's the monopolistic nature of DB that facilitates mass disruption

If most routes were franchised out to a variety of operators by the NTA , then a vibrant multi company bus system would exist. In a strike there would be plenty of busses to then temporarily take over the duties of the striking busses.

This no different,mis I'm a logistics company contracting out my delivers. , if one of my carriers goes on strike , I can switch my business to another

Customers on Dublin bus are actually in effect customers of the NTA , who contract Dublin bus to carry its passagners. A dispute between a bus company and its workers may rightly affect that company , but it shouldn't affect the NTAs customers

A vibrant multi company bus system, sounds great, can't wait!!

BoatMad

Kyleboy wrote: »

A vibrant multi company bus system, sounds great, can't wait!!

No reason , why routes couldn't be franchised out to many companies , creating a private bus ecosystem. The nature of which would mean that in the event of a strike there would be capacity to cover the strike hit routes ( ot at very least some of them )

Infini

BoatMad wrote: »

Customers on Dublin bus are actually in effect customers of the NTA , who contract Dublin bus to carry its passagners. A dispute between a bus company and its workers may rightly affect that company , but it shouldn't affect the NTAs customers

The NTA is essentially another quango thats effectively CIE + Luas. Like everything else in Ireland its a halfarsed solution as in an extra layer of bueraucracy instead of a proper fix which would've been to essentially transfer DB/IE and BE ground staff into it and jettison the useless management which in no small part has been the problem in those companies over the years. The people who actually could improve things just dont get a chance to because someones buddy needed a cushy number and got in instead only to be useless at the job.

If you wanted a proper solution it would be to put at least Dublin public transport services under the one agency which would be better at coordinating things and at the same time actively work at preventing strikes from breaking out in the first place. These strikes only happen because they're let happen in the end if there was serious interest in solving the issues they wouldn't get this far in the first place.

BoatMad

Infini2 wrote: »

The NTA is essentially another quango thats effectively CIE + Luas. Like everything else in Ireland its a halfarsed solution as in an extra layer of bueraucracy instead of a proper fix which would've been to essentially transfer DB/IE and BE ground staff into it and jettison the useless management which in no small part has been the problem in those companies over the years. The people who actually could improve things just dont get a chance to because someones buddy needed a cushy number and got in instead only to be useless at the job.

If you wanted a proper solution it would be to put at least Dublin public transport services under the one agency which would be better at coordinating things and at the same time actively work at preventing strikes from breaking out in the first place. These strikes only happen because they're let happen in the end if there was serious interest in solving the issues they wouldn't get this far in the first place.

That's just a public sector argument dressed up as a rant

In any sector , once you have essentially a monopoly , then you hand over power to the workers that can use their withdrawal of labour to cause great discomfort.

There is only one solution , that's to break up such monopolies

Making an even bigger monopology is even less of a solution

The transport unions are and were accused of using the luas action as a staking horse, that's obviously been proven correct.

Del2005

BoatMad wrote: »

No reason , why routes couldn't be franchised out to many companies , creating a private bus ecosystem. The nature of which would mean that in the event of a strike there would be capacity to cover the strike hit routes ( ot at very least some of them )

If the routes are franchised then the non striking workers can't be used, no other company would be licensed to operate on a route it's not franchised to run.

With franchising in the end it would be like the haulage industry, where the person in charge of the large slow moving vehicle earns less than someone packing a shelf and has longer working hours.

Dravokivich

BoatMad wrote: »

(1)No reason , why routes couldn't be franchised out to many companies , creating a private bus ecosystem. The nature of which would mean that(2) in the event of a strike there would be capacity to cover the strike hit routes ( ot at very least some of them )

1- That's what's being tendered at the moment with the "privatisation" that's coming along.

2- the operator will be the sole service provider of their batch of routes. No-one will be able to run them unless explicitly licensed by NTA.

As/If the tender process progresses after the initial batch, I suspect the NTA will be unlikely to tender routes along the same corridor to different operators.

end of the road

hmmm wrote: »

These are not workers being locked out by some capitalist ogre, these are workers who are better paid and have better security of employment than most of their passengers, who want an increase in their pay. The public have a right to a decent system of public transport, and if these workers who are in a very privileged position are unwilling to deliver it, then the government should be looking for alternatives.

Whether that's no strikes on monopoly public services (including the ESB etc), or some form of private competition.

some form of private replacement you mean. as we have discussed before they're isn't going to be "competition" apart from
1. where commercial privately run services exist currently.
2. where they're may be a bit of overlap but that will make no difference as they're won't be capacity increases.
anti-strike legislation can also be circumvented rather easily.

BoatMad wrote: »

The simplest way around this is to ensure that monopoly are broken up. It's the monopolistic nature of DB that facilitates mass disruption

If most routes were franchised out to a variety of operators by the NTA , then a vibrant multi company bus system would exist. In a strike there would be plenty of busses to then temporarily take over the duties of the striking busses.

that's not correct. a multi-company bus system does not stop an all out strike from happening.

BoatMad wrote: »

That's just a public sector argument dressed up as a rant

In any sector , once you have essentially a monopoly , then you hand over power to the workers that can use their withdrawal of labour to cause great discomfort.

There is only one solution , that's to break up such monopolies

Making an even bigger monopology is even less of a solution

The transport unions are and were accused of using the luas action as a staking horse, that's obviously been proven correct.

proven correct by who and how? the dublin bus issue is down to an agreement made back in 2008. long before anything in relation to pay rises in luas.
smaller monopolies and the potential for inefficientsies is not an option either or at least if it is it's a bad one.

BoatMad

Del2005 wrote: »

If the routes are franchised then the non striking workers can't be used, no other company would be licensed to operate on a route it's not franchised to run.

With franchising in the end it would be like the haulage industry, where the person in charge of the large slow moving vehicle earns less than someone packing a shelf and has longer working hours.

The nta could quite easily include a clause that allows other operators to operate a bus route where that franchised operator can't provide service ( for whatever reason )

It's not the purpose of any company to provide any particular pay level for any particular employee. Pay determination is competitive. If there are people willing to accept that level of pay for that work, then that determines the pay rate. ( above the legal minimum obviously)

That's what's wrong with DB and IE etc, the workers think the company exists to renumerate them.

munchkin_utd

They have a minimum service for train strikes in Italy (certain regions anyhow) and its a great idea. Its even posted in the information cabinets at stations.
The company and public still suffer as theres reduced services+frequencies(and less revenue for the company), reduced operating hours etc, but at least some services run so nobody is stuck in the back end of beyond all day.

In Germany and France its different as theres multiple unions who strike separately so often its only a portion of the drivers striking so only a portion of the services are cancelled. But the end effect is the same as a strike schedule is issued day by day depending on how many staff are available.

Hilly Bill

BoatMad wrote: »

The nta could quite easily include a clause that allows other operators to operate a bus route where that franchised operator can't provide service ( for whatever reason )

It's not the purpose of any company to provide any particular pay level for any particular employee. Pay determination is competitive. If there are people willing to accept that level of pay for that work, then that determines the pay rate. ( above the legal minimum obviously)

That's what's wrong with DB and IE etc, the workers think the company exists to renumerate them.

Oh dear God :-))

BoatMad

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Oh dear God :-))

Yes my son ,?

snickerpuss

BoatMad wrote: »

The nta could quite easily include a clause that allows other operators to operate a bus route where that franchised operator can't provide service ( for whatever reason )

It's not the purpose of any company to provide any particular pay level for any particular employee. Pay determination is competitive. If there are people willing to accept that level of pay for that work, then that determines the pay rate. ( above the legal minimum obviously)

That's what's wrong with DB and IE etc, the workers think the company exists to renumerate them.

Where does this end? Will you be happy enough if someone comes in to do your job for €9.15 an hour? Additionally IE drivers have little to fear if so as their counterparts in the UK are actually paid more.

Vic_08

BoatMad wrote: »

The nta could quite easily include a clause that allows other operators to operate a bus route where that franchised operator can't provide service ( for whatever reason )

And where are these extra buses and drivers going to come from?

If a company is franchised to run a tranche of routes with an overall PVR of 50 buses they will have 50+ maintenance spares. If their service requires 120 drivers a day then they will hire enough to cover that.

A new bus costs in the region of €300,000. Nobody is going to have a fleet sitting around doing nothing just in case there is a strike that needs breaking.

Or do you expect the taxpayer to fund this ridiculous fantasy?

The idea that there will be lots of small operators is also a fantasy. Firstly the qualification rules for the tenders already issued were quite onerous, a limited number of companies will pass that stage, mainly the big multi-national groups, the handful of large native operators or a mix of big companies sub-contracting to locals.

No matter what arrangement is used I would expect two or three at most to end up dominating the market using economies of scale to undercut any serious competition.

dowlingm

there is nothing more frustrating than C&T's frequent excursions into labour relations, and I say that as someone not a lawyer myself.

Here in Ontario, the City of Toronto applied to the Province to have the transit commission made an essential service in 2011. Sounds great, right? The workers can't strike. Problem is that now wage settlements are not decided by negotiation and lockouts or strikes but by arbitration. This downside was pointed out when it was proposed in 2008:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2008/09/12/theres_a_downside_to_making_the_ttc_an_essential_service.html

It seems counterintuitive that designating a unionized workforce as providers of an essential service could increase wages; after all, unions then lose the threat of a full strike. However, with the designation, the union's apparent loss of bargaining power is offset by having to compensate employees for the loss of their right to withhold services, and the greater role given to third parties – arbitrators and mediators – in setting wages and working conditions.

After looking at all major public sector wage agreements in the last 30 years, I have found that annual wage increases are 13 per cent higher following the introduction of essential services legislation.

(emphasis added)

Even then, as the Guards showed, simply legislating away the right of Irish transit companies to strike may contravene obligations the government has signed up to. And LUAS just showed us private workforces strike too.

BoatMad

snickerpuss wrote: »

Where does this end? Will you be happy enough if someone comes in to do your job for €9.15 an hour? Additionally IE drivers have little to fear if so as their counterparts in the UK are actually paid more.

in my business, if a company could get the expertise and skill that needed to my tasks for 9,50 an hours they'd jump at it

BoatMad

No matter what arrangement is used I would expect two or three at most to end up dominating the market using economies of scale to undercut any serious competition.

fine, two three or four say, thats better then a monopoly

Dyr

BoatMad wrote: »

No reason , why routes couldn't be franchised out to many companies , creating a private bus ecosystem. The nature of which would mean that in the event of a strike there would be capacity to cover the strike hit routes ( ot at very least some of them )

It makes sense but the problem is that private transport tends to wind up as bad as public transport

I'm all in favour of dublin bus having routes taken off them though, monopolies are band.