Public transport to come to a stand-still today as 3,000 workers take strike action
It's over an on-going dispute over pay.
Widespread disruption is expected today across all bus and train services as over 3,000 Translink workers commence their second say of strike action of 2024. It comes just two weeks since the country came to a stand-still on 18th January.
Todays 24-hour stoppage is over the cost of living pay dispute. Members of the transport unions, Unite, GMB and SIPTU, have started their sixth one day strike, on a staggered basis. The strike will bring all bus and rail services across Northern Ireland to a halt.
A further three strike dates in February are planned in a campaign to secure a cost-of-living pay increase.
In a joint press release, unions said: “The strikes are a result of Translink failing to make any form of a pay offer to its workers. Funding for public transport services has been constrained with no money for a cost of living pay increase being made available as a result of the punitive budget imposed by secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris.
Despite recent political developments, no improved pay offer has been made to the public transport unions. There is no clarity on the timing of such an offer or even a timeframe for negotiations.”
Speaking exclusively to Downtown/Cool FM, Keiran Ellison, the Regional Officer for Unite the Union said: “Our estimates are that the 600 million is not enough to cover the issues at hand.”
He suggested that there is a strong potential that the money will deal with some groups of public sector workers, and others will be left with no increased income, which would mean further industrial action from the unions.
He went on to say: “We finally appear to be on the cusp of having a government, I think it’s a positive step forward for Northern Ireland and everyone in our community. However, the devil is in the detail, so I would be hopeful that we have taken the first step to resolving this matter. If any Politian wants to clarify in writing that education authority support staff are a part of that money, and this is trickling in the right direction, we can make cognises of that and we will have decisions to make. But at the moment, we have no detail, and no one has put anything in writing that is meaningful and tangible so that we can change our direction of travel.”
“At the moment we don’t have government, the Secretary of State has not released the money, and our members still believe it’s appropriate to keep the pressure on so they are not sidelined as unimportant.”
Mr Ellison went on to stress that, “Numerous numbers of members are in poverty, lets be clear about that. They need a way out of poverty, and they are absolutely sickened by the Secretary of State’s immoral act by using them as leverage with our Politian’s…. Our members are clear they deserve that money whether Stormont are resat or not and the Secretary of State’s immoral act has been something that points in the direction of politicians not from these shores, that are not elected by these shores, and that make decisions that are not in best interest of these people.”
Mr Ellison appealed directly to Chris Heaton-Harris, saying: “Secretary of State I appeal to you, please release that money as a confidence building measure, so that we can get that into people’s pockets as soon as possible. So, they can pay the bills and start to erode the substantial amount of debt that they are in.”
You can hear more on this story at the top of the hour in our news bulletins: https://planetradio.co.uk/cool-fm/player/