Up to 4000 Translink transport workers picketed in a second day of strike action yesterday. A third starts today. Workers are ready for a scheduled fourth on the 22nd and are ready to join a massive total public sector strike in early 2024.
The Translink management have repeatedly used the DUP’s blockage of the Stormont Assembly as their excuse but the first worker action on 1 December showed that they were ready and able to strike together across the sector and effectively command public support for their situation which the working class across the north share. The management has offered a pay increase of 0%.
Before dawn two ladies with rolling suitcases approached the smaller of the two local pickets in Newry and asked for information about where to get usual southern bus service. Picketers gave detailed directions pointing them around the corner on the other side of the river. They stayed to chat, thanked the workers, took leaflets and said the workers were right to strike and smiled above their scarves in support as they left with handbag-holding fists in the air. Depots and stations across the north had pickets and saw support from the public like this from the public.
Michelle Maxwell is a Belfast Glider driver and union rep on the 100-strong Milewater Service Centre picket yesterday morning laid out the workers’ situation.
‘They haven’t even offered us anything. We’ve held off (on striking) since April. We’ve shown a lot of good will but we’ve been forced out. Our families are taking a hit here when we strike but also when we agree to an effective pay cut. The petrol’s gone up to get us to the depot. The workers don’t feel valued. And it’s not just about pay: It’s a public service issue. They’ve tried to cut bus passes for pensioners. The whole working class needs a lift here.’
‘They’re cutting what we’re getting,’ said one worker over the blasts of horns of support highlighting the unfairness and the obviously different worlds the DUP reps and the workers live in. ’You’re down here with your leaflets. Do you think any of them will come down here? Not a chance. They went in and signed for their wages. They made sure they got paid. They are 3 years out in Stormont now. They threw their dummies out of the pram. It’s a shambles. You heard Chris Heaton-Harris yesterday. The money is there. Reducing our pensions. Making us work longer. Changing timetables. 0% increase!’
At the fire barrel at Short Strand the workers said the company itself has 40 miillion in reserve which could be released immediately and has nothing to do with Stormont. ‘Translink has the income streams. It’s not totally dependent on government.’ All agree that the money is out there, it’s sustainable, and the workers deserve it.
All the workers we spoke to believed that a deal could and should be done immediately and that they as workers were being used as a pawns. ‘But pawns can check a king,’ one supporter said.
Unite and GMB officials were on pickets at Great Victoria Street, Falls Road and Milewater with SIPTU flags at Lanyon Place. This was not an exercise. The unions want a win here. The union officials know the biggest united front challenge possible is needed if the members are going to construct the conditions for win against the disastrous institutions of austerity and sectarianism they have faced before. The whole working class will need to unite and this strike is showing the way.
Public approval of the strike has been nearly unanimous in between their first strike date (1 Dec 2023) and the second (15 Dec 2023). Davy Thompson of Unite said on the radio an interview a worker shared with us ‘The response is both reasonable and proportionate… It’s not every Saturday either… The Secretary of State should deliver an early Christmas present to the workers.’
Was it the officials’ idea to have all three unions strike simultaneously in Translink? Chris Hughes a rep for 400 drivers says the unity is from the ground level. ‘Everyone is pissed off with the non-engagement from Stormont. We’ve got to do something about it. The Catalyst was the April pay talks. (Translink) management asked us to hold off. Then it was September. Then November. It’s partly about wages but it’s also about services. People can’t afford to visit friends or get into the city. There’s a lack of investment.’
But the courage or relief some workers can take from public approval and support can’t change the basics grievances which go beyond the workplace: ‘Everything’s going the wrong way.’ Craig Malloy a driver at a 100-bus depot north of Belfast. ‘Prices have gone up this year. Our wages haven’t. Everyone is experiencing this not just drivers. We’ve got cleaners, inspectors, shunters, engineers, train signallers. We’ve got three unions: GMB, SIPTU, and Unite, all out together. Cleaners and shunters here are on minimum wage. (Translink CEO) Chris Conway said he would change that. Nothing yet.’ On the public he said: ‘You might get a person complaining about it. It’s natural when you depend on the buses. But they’ve backed us.’
James, a cleaner we spoke to, was the only person who ran into a negative response to the strike. He also said it was easy to win them over himself when he made the case for the strike and a real pay rise.
Back at the Short Strand depot shouting over four-lanes of loud traffic and hornblast of approval Matthew Johnston said ‘I’m happy to stand with everyone out here today against 0% offer. Everybody’s been supportive of the strike. I couldn’t believe the amount of support these last two weeks. Even the pensioners. “Do what you have to do!” they say.’
People Before Profit backs the strike 100%. It’s sustained, longer, broader, coordinated strikes like this one, which will break the deadlock and show how to break with the failed Tory politics, with austerity and with privatisation. That’s a future that works better for workers -and everyone.
Our leaflet took up the complaint that workers were being used as a political football:
‘Strikes prove that working people are not a political football -nor are we just supporters of one side or the other. We have our own side. And we are playing to win a new future that works for workers without the Tories or the DUP blocking the way with sectarian politics or the hopeless economics of austerity.
The Tory agenda remains to privatise everything, even the public transport that we need for a real sustainable future. We need to defend this like we fight for all public services. There’s money for war so we know there’s money for people.’
We encourage everyone to visit a picket today and support every striker.
