SIPTU members in Bus Éireann have been informed that the impending strike at their company, which will commence on Monday (6th March), is one which must be won in order to secure a future for all semi-state workers and rural Ireland. A letter from SIPTU Division Organiser, Greg Ennis, to all SIPTU members in Bus Éireann today (3rd March), states: “The attempt, by the recently appointed senior management of Bus Éireann and their specialist external advisers, to savage our members moderate terms and conditions and further privatise a proud state owned transport company must be resisted at all costs, both for the good of the rural travelling public who deserve and depend on the essential Bus Éireann service and our members.” He added: “This country and the travelling rural public deserve and require a properly funded Public Bus Service and the Government must fund it appropriately and not simply continue to manufacture the privatisation of Bus Éireann by stealth in accordance with its unworkable policies e.g. reduced subvention from €50 million in 2008 to €40 million in 2016, National Transport Authority imposed route closure/saturation, unfair competition etc.” The letter pledges the “unflinching support and solidarity” of the SIPTU TEAC Divisional Committee and its 25,000-membership spread across its constituent Transport, Energy, Aviation and Construction Sectors, to their colleagues in Bus Éireann. “This is a dispute that can be won and must be won for the sake of not just our Bus Éireann members and their families, but also for the thousands of SIPTU members right across the commercial semi-state sector and indeed the thirty-two counties of Ireland, who no doubt will support your struggle at every opportunity. We must do all that we possibly can to protect some semblance of dignity at work and justice in Irish society.”
SIPTU calls Bus Éireann dispute a battle for the future of the semi-state sector and rural Ireland
