Trade unionism is supposed to be about social solidarity, about protecting the weakest members of society and ensuring a fair deal for all. Over the past decade unions have played a leading role in developing social partnership as a cornerstone of our present boom. Therefore the spectacle of 52 DART drivers holding 50,000 commuters to ransom, not to mention the communities of Greystones and Malahide, comes as a bit of a shock.
The drivers are seeking £11,000 to surrender their right to return to diesel trains, another £11,000 to allow in eight direct trainees needed to expand the service and fill vacancies caused by retirement - and an unspecified sum to extend the DART into Wicklow and north Co Dublin. The Labour Court has already recommended that they receive an ex gratia sum of £8,000 to co-operate with the changes, but the drivers rejected this by 44 votes to three in a ballot two weeks ago.
Yesterday unions and management resumed talks in an effort to bridge the gap. The unions seem to feel that if the company gave £11,000 it would swing the vote. However, the company and the Labour Court received similar signals before the £8,000 was conceded - and then so decisively rejected. What's more, the word from one of the main DART depots yesterday was that any attempt by unions to sell an improved version of the Labour Court recommendation would not run.
Some drivers are so annoyed over what they see as the prevarication of the unions on this issue that they are talking of joining the militant breakaway Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association, which now has about a third of mainline drivers.
Yet it would be unfair to characterise DART drivers as motivated by mindless greed. One former shop steward at Fairview whose family has spent three generations on the railways pointed out that 13 out of 49 rostered DART drivers would not be working yesterday because of holidays, sickness and the need for shop stewards to attend the talks.
"But there will be hardly any trains cancelled, because we will put in the extra work," he added. "We are dedicated. We take joy in the job we do."
So why are people like him threatening such drastic action on Monday?
The answer is that drivers are nervous of allowing direct recruitment to the DART. Traditionally, DART drivers progress from freight work on the diesels to passenger services and, ultimately, their own service. A new viability plan, similar to the one about to be balloted on by mainline drivers, has yet to be negotiated for the DART.
Ironically, although it takes years to progress from diesel to DART trains, it takes only 17 weeks to train a DART driver compared to 16 months for a diesel operator. As the former shop steward put it: "If we lose direct recruitment all control is gone before we enter talks on the company's viability plan".
In 1994 the unions, as part of a wider pay deal, actually conceded the right for the company to introduce direct recruitment; but it was to be phased in over 15 years. An impatient Iarnrod Eireann management tried to speed up the process when it paid the diesel drivers at the two Connolly station depots in Dublin £11,000 each to buy out their right of progression to the DART.
On the strength of that deal, eight employees, ranging from catering supervisors to plate layers on the permanent way, and ticket office staff have been recruited for the DART. But the DART drivers refuse to let them on the trains.
In large part the extravagant price being put on allowing the would-be trainees actually to train is not so much about squeezing lump sums out of the company as providing leverage for a very different agenda. Two weeks ago the drivers put their own proposal to the union negotiators. They said that they would allow three of the eight trainees on the DART to replace vacancies and extend the service to Greystones, provided the company agreed to an immediate start on talks for a viability plan.
No further direct recruitment would be allowed until the viability plan negotiations were concluded. As the former shop steward put it, "This is our chance to get a decent basic pay. My father worked 51 years for the company. When he retired he sold a quarter of his pension for a lump sum of £4,000 and that left him £32 a week to live on."
Although drivers can earn up to £34,000 a year, it is only on the basis of a seven-day week. The basic weekly pay on which pensions are calculated is £278.
Asked if the drivers are not worried about the enormous public pressure that will come on them if the strike goes ahead, he said: "We believe the public will be with us. They see what's happening with all these investigations and the rich getting richer. We are willing to give flexibility, but we want a fair deal in return."
DART drivers like him cannot understand why the unions and company are balking at this approach. Unfortunately, the DART discussions are taking place in the much wider context of restructuring all the CIE companies. Iarnrod Eireann is afraid of conceding anything to the DART drivers that could lead to a new round of pay demands from mainline drivers just as the latter's deal is about to be wrapped up. The unions, for their part, would be happier concluding a lump sum arrangement that would be simple and carry the merit of precisely the sort of knock-on claims the company is anxious to avoid.
Meanwhile, the eight would-be trainees and 50,000 commuters must wait and see. Asked if the DART drivers are not worried about the ultimate sanction of train services being contracted out to private companies, the Fairview driver said: "Who would want to run trains on our dilapidated system?"
The answer, of course, is robots. The DART could easily be converted to what is known in the trade as an "automatic operating environment".
