Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe has appealed to unions representing Luas drivers and management at Transdev, the company that operates the service, to go back to the Labour Court to try and avoid a strike on Thursday and Friday.
The industrial action will affect up to 90,000 people on each day. Two more stoppages are planned for Thursday and Friday of next week, the 18th and 19th February, while further stoppages in March are also likely.
The dispute at Luas centres on demands by staff for improved terms and conditions and has already been through the industrial relations machinery without any success.
Staff rejected a Labour Court recommendation by over 90 per cent before Christmas and talks at the Workplace Relations Commission a number of weeks ago were also unsuccessful.
Luas staff are seeking increases of between 8 and 53 per cent, claims which have raised eyebrows across the industrial relations and political worlds.
Pay movements in the private sector range from 2-3 per cent on average.
Mr Donohoe said the Government “could not produce money” to resolve the strike.
Speaking on RTÉ radio on Wednesday morning, he said the contract for the Luas service that is in place at the moment was up to the end of 2019 and it was not possible to change this contract mid-flow.
“I am not in a position to produce money to resolve the matter. This is a private company. If money were to be put on the table to deal with this , it would then create a huge difficulty for us because the last contract was won by Transdev and people who lost that bidding process would then have an issue with us,” he said.
He added that massive efforts had been made to try and solve the issue since 2014.
“As we speak now I expect the strike will go ahead, at least tomorrow,” he said.
“And this is in the context of 18 to 24 months of efforts to deal with resolving the issues. Further engagement in the context of the Labour Court is so important. If it goes ahead it will cause massive disruption to commuters”.
Mr Donohoe said the State had invested €1.4 billion in the overall Luas infrastructure in recent years but running the service was contracted to a private company.
“The contract that is in place at the moment is up to the end of 2019. It is not possible to change this contract mid-flow and there will be penalties to the company if that contract is not honoured,” he said.
“Other people who work in transport will be looking at what is happening here and the key thing for me, and this is a message that must go out to everybody, because the only people I represent in this are the taxpayers and the commuters, that reasonable negotiations need to take place in the context of the Labour Court”.
The Chairman of the Small Firms Association urged Luas workers to call off the strike, saying it was another example of unions “holding the country to ransom”.
AJ Noonan said the claims for pay increases were “totally out of line with what is happening in the economy”.
“Over 90,000 commuters will be left high and dry and there will be a negative impact on shops and businesses around the city as employees try to get to work and customers are disrupted,” he said.
“The economic impact will be significant at a time when many small businesses are struggling to remain competitive.”