Dublin Bus Workers Reject Work Practice Proposals
People Before Profit TD Brid Smith calls for review of the role of the National Transport Authority (NTA) following almost unanimous rejection of Bus Connects work practice proposals by Dublin Bus Workers.
Following the ballot result in Dublin Bus Deputy Bríd Smith said:
"The Bus Connects plan designed by the NTA could no doubt improve public transport in the city, but it is far from the kind of radical investment in our transport service that we need; in total by the time it is completed it promises only an additional 200 buses across the city from today's fleet numbers, a figure that remains behind the numbers in 2009.
This is woefully inadequate to the task we face."
The TD said the bus workers vote highlighted a real problem with the NTA and our public transport system in general:
"The NTA was established to open up the public transport market and bring private operators into delivering a public service role.
This is totally inappropriate as we are facing a war on climate change.
We need 100% state-run and controlled public services to do battle with the challenges that face us.
And the NTA is no longer fit for purpose.
It is obsessed with tendering competitions and has undermined the provision of services from the existing CIE group.
The time for playing neoliberal games in public transport is over.
I will be calling on the Minister for Transport and the Climate Action Committee to conduct a complete review of the role of the NTA as soon as possible.
Dublin Bus workers are to be congratulated and are absolutely right to reject a race to the bottom and insist on decent terms of employment.
This is an issue of Just Transition and fairness in our battle to deal with climate change.
We have to deliver changes but we have to bring workers and communities with us and not force them to pay the price through weakening their conditions of work.
One reason for this massive vote was real anger among bus workers at been threatened that the NTA would remove their jobs and hand them to private companies if they failed to agree to work longer shifts, that is not how we will tackle the climate crisis, workers can't be browbeaten into accepting worst conditions."
