Rail Users Ireland Forum - View Single Post - CDE Cork Dublin Express train to enter service

Thomas J Stamp · 12-04-2006, 10:28

I imagine this is a big benchmarker for the unions. Put yourselves in their shoes. Firstly this train dosnt need as many staff (a point I'll come back to), which may lead to redundancies, very unlikely, but you know. This is onely the Dublin-Cork direct service. Then, in December, the first batch of inter-city DMU's come in. Now I personally dont know but I can imagine the fear in the Union is that these trains also will not need guards and ticketmen, simply one or the other. These trains will be everywhere by, what, 2008?

These trains also dont need shunting trains in Heuston/Connoly and other terminii. Those lads will also have to find something else to do. Add in the reducetion and evelutal elimination of manned crossings and signals and suddenly theres a lot of lads looking for something to do.

What to do with surplus staff? Well, there could be a balancing equation, if there are more DMU's than there are exisitng trains and therefore more services they should all be OK job's wise but there may be a bit of re-traiing and maybe the dreaded word of demarkation may arise, which leads to a, ahem, "Negotiated Settlement".

Look, I'm not in IE, or anything else, but I was once a member of a union and we could see things like this coming a mile off. Also nowadays i have people who work under me and I have to be able to plan for changes and see things coming from a managment perspective. As posted above surely IE managment know the score? Why do they have to wait till the last second before they realise that things like this have to be accomodated and planned for in advance? If I ran my office like that I'd lose all my clients and Mrs TJS would be wondering why I'm at home all day.

But then maybe that's the problem.

12-04-2006, 10:28	#58
Thomas J Stamp Chairman/Publicity Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: The Home of Hurling Posts: 2,708	I imagine this is a big benchmarker for the unions. Put yourselves in their shoes. Firstly this train dosnt need as many staff (a point I'll come back to), which may lead to redundancies, very unlikely, but you know. This is onely the Dublin-Cork direct service. Then, in December, the first batch of inter-city DMU's come in. Now I personally dont know but I can imagine the fear in the Union is that these trains also will not need guards and ticketmen, simply one or the other. These trains will be everywhere by, what, 2008? These trains also dont need shunting trains in Heuston/Connoly and other terminii. Those lads will also have to find something else to do. Add in the reducetion and evelutal elimination of manned crossings and signals and suddenly theres a lot of lads looking for something to do. What to do with surplus staff? Well, there could be a balancing equation, if there are more DMU's than there are exisitng trains and therefore more services they should all be OK job's wise but there may be a bit of re-traiing and maybe the dreaded word of demarkation may arise, which leads to a, ahem, "Negotiated Settlement". Look, I'm not in IE, or anything else, but I was once a member of a union and we could see things like this coming a mile off. Also nowadays i have people who work under me and I have to be able to plan for changes and see things coming from a managment perspective. As posted above surely IE managment know the score? Why do they have to wait till the last second before they realise that things like this have to be accomodated and planned for in advance? If I ran my office like that I'd lose all my clients and Mrs TJS would be wondering why I'm at home all day. But then maybe that's the problem.