Joint Unite-GMB-SIPTU press release

Full responsibility for transport disruption lies with Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris who has engineered a pay crisis seeking to advance a political agenda

Translink workers from Unite the union, SIPTU and GMB will take three further days of strike action in the run up to Christmas.

A 48-hour strike action is to commence from 00.01 on Friday 15 December ending with a further 24-hour strike commencing a week later at 00.01am on Friday 22 December. The strikes will bring to a standstill all bus and rail services operated by Translink.

The strikes represent an escalation of the industrial dispute by public transport workers who took initial strike action on Friday 1 December. The dispute centres over the unions’ demand for a cost-of-living adjustment pay increase. Workers are facing a real terms pay cut of 11 per cent due to the failure of Translink to offer workers a pay increase.

Both Translink’s management and officials at the department for infrastructure have blamed the failure to offer a pay increase on the inadequacy of funding in the budget imposed by secretary of state for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris.

The unions have laid full responsibility for disruption arising from the strikes with the secretary of state – after he refused to intervene to resolve the pay dispute.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “it is completely unacceptable that Translink workers are facing a huge real terms pay cut, due to the proposed pay freeze.

“This dispute rest entirely at the door of the secretary of state, who could easily resolve it by providing an adequate budget for public transport services. The Translink workers have the unflinching backing of Unite. In the coming days, workers will be taking their campaign for decent pay direct to the door of the secretary of state.”

Speaking for GMB trade union, regional organiser Peter Macklin said: “Chris Heaton-Harris seeks to engineer an industrial relations crisis in Northern Ireland through imposing brutal budgets on the departments to advance his political agenda. He seeks to weaponise the collective punishment of workers and the most vulnerable in a wider political game. This is completely disgraceful. Workers and our public services will not be the collateral damage in a game of chicken.

“The unions have agreed three further strike days before Christmas. We were left with no alternative due to the refusal of the secretary of state to intervene, to provide adequate budgets for our public transport services and to meet our members’ pay expectations. He bears full responsibility for the entirely avoidable disruption that will accompany this strike action.”

SIPTU regional organiser for his union’s members in Translink is Niall McNally who challenged the secretary of state:“Chris Heaton-Harris is behaving like a political arsonist. He seems to think the more fires he can light the better his chances of re-establishing Stormont. I think it is clear to everyone that his failed strategy can only make things worse – and this is increasingly recognised right across civic society in the region.

“The secretary of state needs to step back and pull Northern Ireland from the brink. A return to stable government in Northern Ireland requires adequate funding for basic public services, including public transport – funding sufficient to enable a proper pay increase for public sector workers. It is still within the power of the secretary of state to avoid this strike if he intervenes to resolve this dispute.”