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LUAS SERVICES HAVE once again been shut down today, marking the 11th day of strikes since a dispute between staff and management burst out into the open at the beginning of the year.
Over the months there have been claims and counter-claims from both sides of the dispute. There have been losses of wages for striking workers and losses of revenue for operating company Transdev.
However, as the months have ground on, both sides have dug their heels in and the dispute has become increasingly intractable as the public becomes more and more frustrated.
Siptu has served notice of more stoppages throughout June, while Transdev has hinted at the possibility that workers could be laid off if the dispute isn’t resolved.
With things seemingly getting worse as the months pass, are we in any way near a resolution?
Where we’re at
Transdev says that it will only engage in further negotiations with Luas drivers and Siptu if there is a reasonable basis for them to do so.
In a statement on Wednesday, CEO Gerry Madden said that there was “no basis for any third party intervention or for direct discussions” while the drivers maintained their current position.
The drivers overwhelmingly rejected a proposed deal reached at the Workplace Relations Commission in March, with over 99% of those balloted voting against it.
Transdev has since removed that deal from the table, saying that the longer the strikes go on the less money it will have to offer up as a solution.
Transdev is fined €100,000 for breach of contract for each day it fails to run the Luas service, bringing the total amount lost to date to €1,100,000 (although some of this is offset by not having to pay the workers’ wages for these days or their yearly bonus).
So while Transdev says that it will only offer less than the WRC deal, Siptu and the drivers are still looking for more – and therein lies the seemingly unsolvable nature of the dispute.
Diminishing pot
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One this afternoon, Gerry Madden said that if the drivers were to come forward with a reasonable solution, talks could continue.
“The pot that I have to play with to reward them diminishes with every strike,” he said.
If they were genuinely coming into a space where they recognise that’s the range that and we can negotiate in and they’ve got some ideas about productivity – that would be welcome.
Madden also said that the laying off of drivers was “signposted” as one of the issues in the future, and that he would be meeting Transdev’s legal team on Monday to “explore what means” the company had to resolve the dispute.
“However, what we’ll try to do is use all of the conventional methods to find a resolution so we’re not looking at that but the situation changes on a day to day, week to week basis,” he said.
Speaking this morning on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Siptu Divisional Organiser Owen Reidy said that Transdev had cut off negotiations 19 days ago and that it seemed like the company “don’t want to negotiate”.
“Since that time they have spent their time cutting the pay of staff by 10%, threatening to take people off the payroll, forcing people to work through their breaks and not facilitating people with their annual leave,” said Reidy.
Reidy said accepting the WRC proposals was not an option and that accepting any lower offer “was not going to happen”.
“It seems Transdev after 19 days of cutting off the talks, don’t want to negotiate,” he said.
And I don’t know if they want to try to humiliate or force their own employees into submission, but that won’t happen.
So Transdev says it will only agree to talks if there is a reasonable basis to do so, while Siptu says it will only engage if Transdev are willing to move closer to the drivers’ demands.
But as things stand there are further strikes scheduled for later on this month as well more stoppages in June. With no talks scheduled, it’s getting harder and harder to see how this all will end.
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Unless they hacked voting machines this is a non story.
First the US hacks into other countries all the time they even spy on their own allies where there’s no legitimate national security goal to be met, they e also interfered in or stopped democratic elections in several countries and given how the DNC changed the opening hours of polling places in the primary to give Hillary and advantage they’re not clean either
Second the email leaks are not why she lost. She lost because she was an insider conventional politician at a time when people really wanted an outsider who would break with the past. Her arrogance compounded that, her campaign told the youth and minority vote they HAD to vote for her she didn’t Court them she basically ordered them. There was a story in the NY papers the other day shows this perfectly. She’s thinking of running for mayor to hurt DeBlassio, why? “He delayed in endorsing her and her teams very angry”, see the attitude? ‘It’s not my job to earn your vote I’m ENTITLED to it and you’re the problem if you don’t get it’. If she wasn’t against a fascist she’d have lost the popular vote too
@Ryan Carroll: You were doing so well till you used the “f” word, fascist is a word too often used against Trump. He’s barley even a politician, he’s never even held office yet. Calling him a fascist given that is a more than a bit of a stretch.
Not really up for the “sure they do it all the time” arguments. It’s kind of pointless as it tends to let everyone off the hook.
The last few years have been pretty insane with world politics. Actually, the growth of social media has made it particularly insane… whether it’s always been like that or we’re just seeing it more is another question.
The whole propaganda thing though…. I have an idealistic notion that I hope comes true: people have so much info available now that they can actually look ahead to the potential propaganda. I’m no fan of putin but…. I can see some problems from history that I wouldn’t have without the interwebz.
A build up of NATO forces all along the Russian western border? .. I’d feel threatened. Ukraine.. I don’t think Russia is doing a good thing there but I can understand why Russia would have issues there.
The western characature is one of expansionism but there are plenty of reasons to see it as protectionism
Popcorn at the ready for a new USA v’s Russia troll fest at the Journal.ie clickbait revenue generator.
Some of us are capable of three dimensional thinking .
Unlike the likes of the Irish anti war movement I’m against things not countries . It’s bad when Russia invades and occupies another country it’s bad when the US does it. Tortures bad if it’s in a gulag or a CIA black site in a Polish airport. A suicide bomber going into an Israeli night club targeting civilians and Barack Obama murdering someone who’s name he doesn’t know based on behaviour alone (and the first responders who arrive on scene) are one in the same to me, if you’re trying to kill civilians you’re trying to kill civilians.
Some people think “it’s ok when he does it cos I like him” . If that’s how you think you’ve no real moral compass
@Ryan Carroll: Well said.
Interesting to contrast this charade with the servile British reaction to the irrefutable evidence that Israel is subverting it’s democratic system:
“The second release from Al Jazeera‘s undercover sting operation on key members of the Israel lobby in Britain has revealed a £1,000,000 plot by the Israeli government to undermine Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn………….. This is a British civil servant proposing the take-down of serving UK government minister Alan Duncan, at the request of a foreign diplomat. The Conservative government responded by accepting an apology from Israeli ambassador Mark Regev, and stating the matter is “closed”..”
The ruling class’s concern for the principles of democracy are entirely expedient.
well it’s good they sorted that out so quick
no news here. !! quick look over there what that ……………………
Al Jazeera might be a little biased against Isreal From Qatar who brought us the Arab spring
Did they hack peoples brains to tell them to vote for trump? I don’t get it, unless they actually rigged the votes all they can do is put out propaganda and untruths during the campaign. They couldn’t have lowered the tone of that show no matter how hard they tried. That’s if any of the allegations are even true.
@Kearnsy:
In the end, if there was nothing going on behind closed doors that the public needed to know then the hacks would have resulted in nothing of interest.
@Jason Culligan: The most incriminating information that came from the emails is that Hillary gave a talk to bankers and stated that people often have a public and a private position – which is hardly news to rationally-minded people. There was no smoking gun. Trump stood in front of the world and thanked the Russians for carrying out the hacks and publicly, in front of the world, invited them to do more. His advisor comes from Breitbart, his campaign advisor admitted planting fake stories, yet these are not under scrutiny. As Trump said himself, he could have killed someone and not lost voters. He grabs women by the pussy because he’s rich. Even if the Russians are responsible for the leaking of the emails, it is irrelevant. Enough people voted for Trump in the right states for him to win. Why? I can’t fathom it, but it wasn’t the Russians who made them do it.
@Anne Marie Devlin:
There was far more than that Anne.
We had the revelation that Clinton knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were funding ISIS but the Clinton Foundation happily took donations from these states. We had the revelation that Saunders was purposely scuttled in what was supposed to be a neutral and fair competition. We had the revelation that the Clinton campaign was being fed questions before debates so that Clinton would be better prepared than her competitors.
@Anne Marie Devlin: I think you need to go back to your safe space and do some finger painting till Trumps presidency is over.
Did Putin write the dnc emails. No. Did he conspire within the dnc to shaft sanders . No.
Did he give clinton the debate questions . No . Did he write the podesta emails . No . They done it all themselves , that’s why they lost.
The report spent a lot of time talking about RT . That’s how pathetic it was . It also used shows liking breaking the set as being responsible for clinton losing. A show that is off the air 2 years .. it was pitiful report.
I’d be very surprised if Russia weren’t hacking the US on an ongoing basis.
I’d be very surprised if the US weren’t hacking Russia on an ongoing basis.
I’d be very surprised if hacking was what ultimately swung the election in Trump’s favour.
Yup
This is all a diversion tactic from Clintons crimes.
“Cyber-Security Legend Drops Bombshell About DNC Hacks – Obama Committed Treason
John McAfee, founder of McAfee virus protection, the first and most successful commercial anti-virus program in history just eviscerated Obama’s phony Russian story.
In an explosive interview on RT, Mcafee said,
“There are four facts which they claim prove that Russia did this hack. It was utter nonsense. The information was number one – Russian language was found in the malware. Number two – a Cyrillic keyboard was used. The forensic science can now tell what type of keyboard was used to develop a piece of a malware.”
If it really was the Russians don’t you think they would have hid their tracks a little better. Think about it, if true this could cause world war 3, the Russian state has the resources to easily buy and use an English or Chinese keyboard. They would never use a Russian language one. They aren’t stupid.”
He continued,
http://washingtonfeed.com/cyber-security-legend-drops-bombshell-about-dnc-hacks-obama-committed-treason.html
@Pat O’Dwyer:
The problem here for all of us, is we are unwittingly heading fast track for WW3. With 3600 US tanks unloaded in Bremerhaven at the weekend and now heading for the Russian border, plus rocket systems which can easily be converted into nuclear missile launchers activated in Rumania a few weeks ago which can wipe all West Russian cities within ten minutes, this is not a game anymore.
More evidence :
” The Russians Did Not “Hack” the US Election – a Few Facts from a Former CIA Spy
By Robert David Steele
President Barack Obama is stuck between false flag operations and political circus?
” I am deeply offended by the lies being told by the US Government – and more specifically, by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the explicit approval of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the President – with respect to the Russians “hacking” the US election. Robert David Steele, Intelligence expert
As a CIA spy, I have faked intelligence, lied to government leaders, and managed a modest false flag operation (no one died). This is what CIA does. I accuse John Brennan, Director of the CIA, of being a liar who is in betrayal of the public trust with his lies. The most recent DHS-FBI report – and related reports from small companies seeking to curry favor with the Deep State – are absolute crap.
Read more :
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-russians-did-not-hack-the-us-election-a-few-facts-from-a-former-cia-spy/5567215
Everyone is fed up of these fake news stories.obama and co need to grow up.
It’s true that if The Russians have a truly world class intelligence service there would be no footprints left to follow and the only way we would know they did it would be via some form of whistler blower, an Edward Snowdon type figure if you will.
@David Mac Shite: Though isn’t it interesting, that there is no-one whistle blowing about Trump’s tax returns, or whatever skeletons are in Putin’s closet, yet, the Democratic Party is fair game for every hacker, and Wikileaks is in no way biased?
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus:
The Republicans were also hacked and details from their servers were also released on another site. The contents were far less interesting. I guess it just goes to show that if you’re hacked but you’re clean then there’s no outrage to stoke.
The Democrats are super pissed the truth about the toxic candidate they nominated was exposed to in full view to the public. If all else fails blame the Russians.
The republicans are clean? That’s hilarious.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Why the democrats didn’t make more of an issue out of Trump’s tax returns is beyond me. It should have been a major scandal – as should the university and just about everything else he’s ever done or said. But they just didn’t run with it. They focused on him being an -ist rather than a tax cheating, swindling, media-loving, gilded member of the establishment. There was also very little journalistic probing into anything. The nearest the elections got to in depth analysis of the candidates and their policies was satirical sketches on Saturday Night Live. Trump admitted that he doesn’t use email and I read some time ago that the Kremlin reverted to typewriters a few years ago. As for Putin’s closet, it is not relevant to the US elections. For some light relief http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2017/01/09/trump-calls-on-congress-to-investigate-why-his-tweets-arent-getting-more-retweets/?utm_source=WWN_Facebook_Page&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=Social_Link&utm_content=Article
@David Mac Shite: __ Whistles are closely monitored in Russia, so no one gets a chance to have a blow.
Yeah Ted, they’re so forgiving of this sort of thing in The US, the maximum sanction for “treason” is a mere Death Penalty.
Don’t think it’s that interesting Larissa to be honest. I’m more interested in things that actually happened rather than things that didn’t.
@David Mac Shite: __ They normally have a trial in the US first.
Just ask their Athletes, they would never do such a thing . Putin is a real straight shooter , stand up guy!
the statement that Russia hacked is “16 intelligence agencies suggest of Russian hacking to alter votes” … the same 16 that said they were Sadam had nuclear weapons… a head of the cia said that if Trump keeps being disrespectful they will have their revenge, while a minister of intelligence even suggested to give false information to president Trump… I worry for usa, if they intelligence agencies are not professional to keep the country safe no matter what others say…
Always with the negative waves, Moriarty!
‘Mr. Putin personally ordered it’
Love to know what he had for breakfast that morning.
I can only assume the US intelligence agencies hacked Putins emails or his aids to confirm he personally ordered the hack, how else would they know? The whole this is bloody ridiculous and no more than a smoke screen to steer public outrage away from the DNC and point blame for how they managed to screw up what should have been such an easy election to win.
Either though they were harsh critics of the Kremlin, Vladamir Putin had nothing to do with their deaths. The following people are now dead. Boris Nemstov, Paul Klebnikov, Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Natalya Estemirova.
RUS and US deserve eachother.
Shame that it is gonna be the rest of the world that also pays for the vile geo-politics and empire building.
Absolute human filth on both sides. And whilst they play their dirty games ans engage in war and genocide most of us are playing silly yes but, no but games on online fora. Divide, distort and conquer is very effective.
From a geopolitical point of view it’s utterly illogical for the Americans to raise hell against the Russians for allegedly hacking the DNC given the wholesale hacking of friends and enemies carried out by the Americans, some of which may have been carried out for purely commercial purposes. They give China a free pass in comparison, but given the serious military secrets stolen by the Chinese (eg. the F35 even tho its a heap of sh*t) their free pass here is astounding. The Americans only loose credibility by banging on about the Russians hacking the DNC, it looks political like the tail is wagging the dog.
Mike. The Americans have good reason to hide their F-35s which are currently not even allowed fly over hostile territory for fear of losing one to the enemy. The fact is in many ways the F-35 and F-22 are outperformed by the current F-15. In ground support role neither are a patch on the A-10. Truth is, countless billions have been invested in these state of the art war machines which aren’t as good as as the current designs which date to the 1970s. Avionics apart, they are also inferior to Russian SU-35s. Billions spent of fragile shite.
Well I’m getting kinda tired of Russia invading its neighbours.
The Russians are coming.
Who said that there wasn’t turkey for Christmas, the Russian’s are leaving Syria before the get the bill to fix it.
EU will pick up the tab.
From Russia with Love, let me get some popcorn
Way more interesting http://markhumphrys.com/halawa.html
@Francais Williams: good stuff ! Thanks for link.
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