Luas operator suspends drivers from sick pay scheme

The operator of the Luas has suspended all tram drivers from its sick pay scheme with immediate effect after they announced further strike days in their continuing row over pay.

Siptu, the union representing the drivers, said the action by the company appeared to show it was attempting to “rachet up” the dispute.

In a letter to Siptu organisers dated last Friday, Transdev managing director Gerry Madden said the absence rate for drivers was currently running at about 12 per cent, compared to 4.5 per cent for 2015.

He said this level of absence was imposing “significant additional costs on the company and is highly disruptive to our customers”.

Mr Madden said the company was now invoking its right under an agreement with the unions that if the sick leave level rose above 4 per cent it had the right to suspend individuals from the regular scheme.

“The company is suspending all individual drivers from the regular sick pay benefit scheme and will not be processing any regular sick pay payments in the May payroll and thereafter pending a return to normal absence levels,” Mr Madden wrote.

He said this would not apply to situations where any member of staff was suffering from a critical illness.

“Once absence rates for drivers return to normal levels the company will discuss the re-introduction of sick pay scheme arrangements for all individual drivers,” he said.

Mr Madden said the company regretted having to take this course of action but that current absence levels were “clearly untenable by any objective standard”.

Strike action over pay and conditions again halted Luas services on Friday, affecting some 90,000 people in Dublin.

Dispute

Mr Madden said there remained a significant gap between what the company could afford and what the workers were seeking.

Separately, Mr Madden is to meet the company’s legal team today and has said he wants to explore what means there are to try to resolve the dispute.

“I still would go back to the point that the best way to resolve a dispute is in the conventional way, with reasonableness,” Mr Madden said on Friday.

Transdev said last week it was in a grave situation as a result of the ongoing industrial action but was not looking at laying off drivers.

The firm incurred financial penalties of €414,000 as a result of services being cancelled due to strikes in the period to March 27th.

Siptu organiser Owen Reidy said the Transdev action was "unfortunate and regrettable".

He said the decision to suspend all drivers from the sick pay scheme was not the action of an employer interested in settling the dispute, but was the action of an employer that appeared to want to “rachet up” the dispute.

Mr Reidy said on Friday Transdev had effectively locked organisers out of talks and that the union “will not beg for talks”.

The union had not been in touch with Transdev since it last served strike notice on May 11th.

Mr Reidy said it had at that stage been 19 days since Luas management broke off negotiations and that the company needed to decide whether or not it wanted to resolve the dispute.

“Since that time they have spent their time cutting pay by 10 per cent, threatening to take people off the pay roll, forcing people to work through their breaks and not facilitating people with their annual leave,” he said.

Full list of upcoming scheduled strikes:

- Friday 20th May 2016

- Thursday 26th May 2016 - 4 hour stoppage (3-7pm)

- Friday 27th May 2016

- Thursday 2nd June - 4 hour stoppage (3-7pm)

- Friday 3rd June - 4 hour stoppage (9am-1pm)

- Tuesday 7th June - 4 hour stoppage (9am-1pm)

- Wednesday 8th June - 4 hour stoppage (6-10pm)

- Thursday 9th June - 4 hour stoppage (6-10pm)

- Friday 10th June - 4 hour stoppage (6-10pm)