A registered trade union claiming to represent more than 100 locomotive drivers in Iarnrod Eireann was "a malcontent, maverick group" intent on destabilising industrial relations in the company and responsible for two work stoppages earlier this year which left thousands of passengers stranded, the High Court was told yesterday.
Mr John Keenan, human resources manager with Iarnrod Eireann, said the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association had interrupted the negotiation of a new agreement on the pay and conditions of locomotive drivers. Those negotiations, facilitated by the Labour Relations Commission and involving SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail workers' Union, had been under way for more than two years and were near completion.
The proposals included a composite earnings package for drivers ranging from £26,000 to £29,500 a year for a five-day working week averaging 43-48 hours.
Mr Keenan said that the ILDA came out of a small number of locomotive drivers who were discontented at the loss of mileage payments following a 1994 agreement on pay and conditions. The forerunner of the ILDA was the National Locomotive Drivers' Committee which, he claimed, had fomented industrial unrest among the 295 drivers.
He said that work stoppages on Friday, July 9th, and Sunday, July 11th, were directly due to the ILDA and occurred without any attempt to use the existing conciliation machinery and without any formal notice. Several thousand passengers were affected. This led to a further stoppage which was designed to show the muscle of other unions in response to the ILDA action.
In a joint statement last July, SIPTU and the NBRU had accused the ILDA of creating anarchy and distrust among locomotive drivers and claimed that it was playing into the hands of those who wished to break up CIE and have it sold to privateers.
Mr Keenan said Iarnrod Eireann would not negotiate with the ILDA because it was not a trade union in the proper form due to its lack of a negotiating licence. It also objected to the ILDA's creation of discord within the workforce and its "exaggerated promises", which had given rise to false aspirations among drivers.
He was giving evidence on the opening day of an action by Iarnrod Eireann against 11 named locomotive drivers said to constitute the executive council of the ILDA. On the application of Mr John Rogers SC, for the men, Mr Justice O'Neill yesterday also joined the ILDA itself as a co-defendant in the action.
Iarnrod Eireann is seeking damages from the defendants for two work stoppages last July and is also claiming that the ILDA is not entitled to represent locomotive drivers in the ongoing negotiations on a new agreement governing the pay and conditions of such drivers.
It wants an injunction restraining the defendants from instigating or maintaining industrial action and a declaration that Iarnrod Eireann is required, as a matter of law, to negotiate and conclude agreements regarding conditions of service for its employees with authorised trade unions recognised as such by the company and possessing negotiating licences.
The defendants admit that they are involved in organising mainline and suburban locomotive drivers. They deny that they have constituted themselves as the ILDA, but rather form the national committee of the ILDA, a registered trade union. They deny representing members of other trade unions. They also deny causing industrial unrest or loss or damage to Iarnrod Eireann.
They plead the right to negotiate on behalf of ILDA members and deny organising work stoppages but, without prejudice, plead that such stoppages, if they were organised, were not unlawful.
Opening the action yesterday, Mr Peter Charleton SC, for Iarnrod Eireann, said that the dispute between the two sides arose from the unhappiness of some locomotive drivers with a 1994 agreement relating to their pay and conditions. A group of drivers had come together with a view to ensuring that any future collective agreement should not be concluded without input from the ILDA.
The central issue was whether a group of persons who had registered as a trade union were allowed, in the absence of a negotiating licence granted under Part II of the Trade Union Act of 1941, to negotiate terms and conditions for employees. He contended that they were not.
The hearing continues today.
