[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by Examiner

Passengers face threat of further rail chaos

By Stephen Rogers
TRAIN services in Cork could be severely disrupted yet again in the coming days after two drivers were removed from the payroll.

Less than a fortnight after a week-long dispute disrupted the travel plans of 100,000 passengers, drivers at Cork's Kent Station are once more on the brink of industrial action.

According to a driver source, when one of the drivers turned up on Monday to operate a training shift as rostered, he was asked to drive the train to Mallow.

"He did the trip and when he came back he was asked to drive the training shift. He asked who was responsible for the train if there was an incident when the trainee was driving. They said ‘you are'. He said ‘grand, I am not driving the train so'. He said any incident while the trainee was driving would go on his file, so unless they gave him a note excluding him from responsibility he would not drive the train. At the end of the day they took him off the payroll. He asked why and he said they could not answer him."

The source said another driver came in and was also asked to drive the training run. "When he was told that he would be responsible for the train while the trainee was driving he also refused and was removed from the payroll," he said.

The week-long dispute two weeks ago was sparked when a driver was removed from the payroll for refusing to operate a training run for which he was not rostered.

That widened into an impasse over the terms of conditions of Cork drivers compared with the rest of the country. That dispute was only resolved with lengthy negotiations at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) under the chairmanship of Tom Pomphrett.

Now Mr Pomphrett is being approached by the drivers to ask for his point of view on the situation.

"We were carrying out our duties as requested. We were being flexible and co-operating, the whole lot," said the driver. "We believe the company is trying to start a strike and we are doing everything in our power to stop it. That is why we are all still working. We now believe they are going to take a driver off the payroll everyday unless they agree to take responsibility for the train while the trainee is driving.

"We are just playing it by ear and we are watching very closely. We know they are trying to force us outside the gate. They want more than what they got out of the Labour Relations Commission."

Iarnród Éireann said the two drivers were in breach of the LRC agreements by refusing to take out the training train. It said the training run involves an instructor, the trainee and the driver, and that when the trainee driver has control of the vehicle, there is dual control for the driver.

The company rejected accusations it was trying to cause a dispute.

http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer...745-qqqx=1.asp