Bosses want to privatise buses and trains

national | environment | opinion/analysis Thursday July 31, 2003 13:11 by Workers Solidarity

= more profits for the bosses
= traffic jams, pollution and crap service for travellers
= worse pay and conditions for workers

The FF/PD coalition are pushing ahead with plans to privatise buses and trains. Should we worry, does it matter who the boss is? Bus and train workers know what's at stake. The vote for industrial action over the summer was 83.2% in Irish Rail, 87.9% in Bus Eireann, and 90.6% in Dublin Bus.

We have a poor public transport service because it is not really intended to be a service. It's not there for our convenience. Its primary goal is to get us into work and into town to spend our money in the shops. When the private transport firms were taken over and merged into CIE it was because they could not even do that.

Years of underinvestment in CIE brought it close to bankruptcy by the mid-1990s. The government subsidy (much of it to fund less used but necessary routes) had dropped from £24 million down to £5.6 million. Only in recent years has the subsidy been rising again, but it is still a long way behind most European countries. The average is 50%, in Ireland it is a mere 11%. Despite all this, and thanks to lots of changes agreed by bus workers, Dublin Bus made a profit of €3.4 million last year.

NBRU and SIPTU workers refused to collect fares on July 18th. This was a great way to hit the government in the pocket without inconveniencing the rest of us. According to Metroline chief executive, David O'Farrell, "a promise of free fare days and one day strikes is not what the public wants". Well he was wrong about that!

Full support for the bus and train workers is in all our interests. We don't need privatisation - we do need a free public transport service, operated for passengers and run by the people with the best knowledge, the transport workers themselves.

The consequences of transport privatisation

There is nothing wrong or "inefficient" in subsiding public transport. It's a lot cheaper to provide regular, dependable and affordable (or free!) buses and trains than to have even more car usage. More cars on the road means more road building, more road repairs, more traffic jams and more air pollution.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan now intends to sell off 25% of Dublin Bus routes from January, and another 25% each year after that. Waiting eagerly is Metroline, a part of the Delgo multinational. They have already bought up Aerdart, City Link and started a Galway to Shannon route.

They are an anti-union firm who have shown their true colours in Glasgow and Edinburgh where they have made working conditions worse than before and cut back the actual bus service. Afterall, their only interest is in making as much profit as possible.

The private companies will seek to underbid Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann for the routes by employing non-unionised workers on fixed term contracts, with lower pay and little in the way of pension or other benefits.

After an initial honeymoon period the less profitable services will be cut back. To expect anything else is to expect that greedy fat cat capitalists will suddenly decide to put our needs before their wealth. Some chance!

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