Maybe they are right then to move it in order to get that pay rise instead of moaning about no pay rise on the Journal…

@paul Please speak for yourself,

you should have picked a better shop steward

Ah Wally, You cant beat a bit of copy and paste first thing at the morning :-)

The faster we have self drive public transport the better.

along with a totally private health system, old gabby?

In fairness Mickmc it sounds like you should look at a new job…unless you pulling 6 figures and a raise impossible.

Billy, bus drivers are not creators of wealth. They work in a subsidised loss-making industry. You say to joina union but most people can’t do what transport workers do. If we demand more than our employers can afford or are willing to part with, our employers go out of business and we lose our jobs. If we want more money, we have to provide more value. There’s a limit to how well somebody can drive a bus, and thus, necessarily, a (quite low) limit to how much one can earn from doing so in a free market.

So your shop steward did a good job then mickmc? Most workers benefit from the battles won by earlier unions. 40 hour week, minimum wage, workplace health and safety etc etc etc. The cause of the majority working class is only ever advanced significantly and sustainably through collective action, solidarity and struggle against the capitalist system. The lives of the majority are only bearable because of the many battles fought and won by the earlier socialists and unions. None of these concessions to the working class were willingly gifted by capital but we’re fought and won over centuries of socialist struggle.

Derek,
The public transport system is a form of real wealth as the 400k commuters who use Dublin Bus daily will understand. And it’s not mean to be a profit making enterprise, it’s a public service which is a collectively held resource.

And the fact that a public transport system is loss making in monetary terms should not matter in the slightest because at a macro government/central bank level money is instantly available to those entities issue the currency. They don’t need the public transport system to generate money.

It’s important to differentiate between money and real wealth/ resources. Money is how we measure wealth and also a claim on society’s resources. Our fiat currency money is created (and deleted) at will on the computer keyboards of the world’s commercial and central banks. At a macro level there can never be a shortage of a fiat floating currency like the Euro, sterling dollar etc.

In contrast to the instant availability of money, the real wealth of goods and services that we all depend on (including the transport network) is created by the labour and skill of the working class from the raw material of the planet. Everything from the food in our bellies to the clothes on our backs right up to the most sophisticated technology is made by the workers.

Money is a claim on that real wealth produced by the working class and this is where money derives it’s power. The capitalist system peddles the illusion that there is a shortage of money (balance the books, reduce the deficit, live within your means etc) in order to oppress and control the working class who are the real creators of wealth.

@prouesse – no not at all.. what is the correlation between driverless public transport and private healthcare?

Every boss in this country says the same thing. My company is running at a loss and we can’t afford to raise wages. Then they drive their new BMWs home to their mansions and relax with a nice Cuban and a glass of champers. Of course they are telling the truth. They are pillars of the community and have great respect for their workers. Sure they do.

Billy, thanks for the warmed-up Marxism 101.
I’m not denying that public transport is a valuable service, or even that it should be subsidised. What I object to is the idea that those of us who actually have to produce more value to get more money should pay for those who do not. This is surely something you can get on board with.
I, as a skilled labourer, a real creator of wealth, can earn in proportion to the level of my skills and the quantity of my labour. If I want to earn more, I will have to learn more or do more. I will have to create more value. I can’t keep creating the same amount of value and expect to earn ever more money.
Bus drivers see things differently. They want to do the same job to the same level but be paid ever more for it. As much as you think this can be done by printing more money, the reality is that it comes from bus users and from taxpayers.
If all Dublin Bus drivers were suddenly wiped out, do you think there would be a shortage of applicants for their jobs? Do you think people with all the necessary skills to drive and press buttons would stick their noses up at the paltry conditions Dublin Bus is offering? Or do you think there would be hundreds of applications for each available job?
Dublin Bus drivers can demand such high salaries not because they are irreplacable creators of wealth but because they have formed a powerful cartel that is able to hold the city to ransom.

@Billy. The shop steward did. I wasn’t paying him my sub’s every week. We were paying Siptu who were happy to take our money but didn’t want to do anything in return. They’re only interested in the big companies where they can keep themselves in the headlines.

@Tuot Tuot. Thanks for your concern but I’m happy enough where I am. I’m on reasonable good money. Probably a bit above the industrial norm for my profession but that not down to any unions, that down to hard work and a proven track record over many years.

Derek,

What you’re advocating is that all workers stay isolated and disorganized so that capital can exploit them to the maximum possible degree. Worker’s organizations (unions) are the antidote to that exploitation.

And you’re not paying for the Dublin bus drivers. Money is never a constraint at a macro level as explained. It’s just a tool to measure and allocate the real resources that society has created.

What you’re really paying for is your boss’s profits, through your labour. Capitalist enterprise will not create a single job or produce a single product or service without the expectation of that profit. Therefore capital only ever employs labour in order to exploit it to a greater or lesser degree. The sole objective of capitalist enterprise is the accumulation of profit and that profit is generated by the workers in the excess value they create over and above their wages. That is the essence of capitalism and it’s inherently exploitative. That profit is maximized by paying labour as little as possible and working people as hard as possible. This is the class divide and why the interests of the classes are always opposing.

So labour never receives the full value of the wealth it has created and over time this inevitably leads to the vast inequality with the majority labour class working to enrich an obscenely wealthy oligarchy. In addition, capital rents out its accumulated assets (e.g. property) back to the working class garnering further profit for itself while producing nothing.

We can see the logical result of this system as in the earlier example where the 62 richest individuals on the planet now hold the same wealth as 3500 million people, the poorest half of the globe’s population many of whom starve to death or survive in abject poverty. None of this in inevitable. It’s the inevitable result of the dominant socio economic model which will ultimately have to be replaced by a system which gears economic activity to meeting peoples’ needs if we want to improve the conditions for the vast majority of humanity.

@old gabby
Your point of view is the correlation.

Billy, I’m not suggesting that workers shouldn’t organise, merely that the only reason this particular group of workers is in a position to make demands is because they are part of a powerful cartel who can hold the city to ransom.
They are not up against a fat cat businessman who must make the choice between a smaller profit margin and going out of business. They are fighting the average worker who, to earn the paltry share of the wealth they create, must at the very least turn up for work. For some, the cost of a taxi will wipe out anything they can earn that day. (Incidentally, are taxi drivers scabs, capitalist profit-mongers or organised wealth creators?)
I accept that your goal is the complete collapse of society and that this is the reason you support the bus drivers but for those of us who would like civilisation to continue (if, ideally, somewhat modified) the demands of these drivers are absurd.

What wealth? We’re still borrowing money to pay for current expenditure. Yes, it’s wrong that so few control so much wealth, but the bus drivers aren’t going to get their pay rise from those 62 people, it’s the taxpayer that’ll be left with the bill, or else we’ll have to increase government borrowing even more, saddling our children with a huge debt to be repaid

You write a lot of words without knowing what they really mean. How can money measure wealth if it is limitless? If the central banks create a tonne of money they just cause inflation and asset bubbles because funds get misallocated when market effiiciencies are interfered with. The fact that Dublin Bus is loss making means that it is inefficient and the govt is subsidising those inefficiencies with real wealth ectracted from elsewhere in the economy.

I had to explain why we can’t just print more money to my 11 year old niece recently, at least she has an excuse for being simple minded , she is a child , what is your excuse Billy ?

What about the guards ?
You support them too

Only effect socialising? ?,, so shift workers and late workers don’t count . DB are playing the propaganda game again and where is Mr Late Late shane Ross in all of this ? Silent as usual only willing to mouthpiece on portfolios not his

I said MOSTLY. Of course some shift workers and others in things like the service industry will be affected. But in nowhere near the same numbers as the regular working hours people and students will be over the following 48 hours. Stop being so blinkered, open your eyes, and read what was actually written.

Alan I totally agree with you, jumparoo is obviously home as snug as a bug after his/ her half five finish to realise that half the city actually work past nine !!!!!

so there’ll be a few days without buses, stop crying like a little baby

“Half the city work past nine”. Where is that statistic from?

Try look at the facts before trying to compare apples and oranges. DB staff had been approved a 6% rise in 2007/8 but DB pulled this. DB staff have contributed 4 different major productivity deals which included earnings reductions and increased workloads WITHOUT increase in earnings to bring the company back into profit, which we succeeded only for the government to reduce subvention again and again and the NTA taking more than 2 million from the profits of DB. Staff are not Luas they are DB and are only seeking what is fair and due from all the productivity deals already given.

Paul you need to stand up for yourself in your workplace a bit more. stop letting your boss walk on you like a doormat.

In which week did DB make a profit?

2013/14/15

Thank you, that clears things up

Bus lanes should be open to vehicles with three or more occupants….

Just drive in the bus lanes. Dint be looking for permission.

If you’re stopped, just sing “Nee Naw” so people know you’re driving an ambulance, be grand.

Bus Lanes are used by more than just Dublin Bus, hence they won’t be open. Air Coach, Bus Eireann, Mortons, Cyclists etc.

“If you’re stopped, just sing “Nee Naw” so people know you’re driving an ambulance, be grand.”

God, you’re an idiot!