The Irish Train Drivers' Strike

In Ireland the striking train drivers were recently forced to return to work. Their
demands were not met.
The ending of the strike represents a defeat for the striking train drivers who were
members of the Irish Locomotive Drivers Association a breakaway union.

The number of train drivers on strike was no more than a third of the total number of
train drivers. The non ILDA train drivers were members of the SIPTU and NBRU.

The alliance between the state, the trade union leadership, the bourgeois media and
the capitalist class itself in the form of the employers' bodies rendered the task of
winning the strike much greater.

According to the ILDA leadership the strike was over the new proposals concerning
rostering and other related matters. ILDA claimed that this new system was unsafe for
passengers. They said that an independent expert commissioned by them had confirmed
this. They refused to work under the new system when it was implemented. They said
they would work under the old system.

Now ILDA is a small union that has been in existence for only about a year. It was
formed out of the National Locomotive Drivers Committee which was a pressure group
within the train drivers union. This committee emerged out of dissatisfaction with the
existing trade unions over a productivity deal agreed to with management.

The new agreement was a result of over three years of negotiation between unions and
Irish Rail management. Elements within the ILDA leadership were directly involved in
the negotiations. Before the deal was finalized and voted on by the train drivers the
NLDC broke from the two unions and formed ILDA. Conveniently they were excluded from
the vote because they were not members of the two recognised unions -an undemocratic
development. Management claimed they were not free to negotiate with ILDA since it did
not have a negotiating licence. It was agreed that the ILDA drivers could rejoin the
unions to qualify for voting. They obviously refused to do this. The proposals were
accepted by a slim majority which means that had the ILDA drivers been free to vote
there would have been a clear majority against the new arrangements. Consequently the
new proposals were, in a sense, agreed to by a minority of the rail drivers.

When the strike was several weeks old it was virtually ignored by the bourgeois media.
Clearly the intention was to kill the strike with silent tactic. The strike was
disrupting services especially in the West of Ireland. It was only when ILDA engaged
in secondary picketing of bus depots and dart services, in Dublin in particular, that
it received media attention. ILDA had succeeded in forcing the mass media to break its
tactic of silence. Much of the media was very hostile whipping up hysteria against the
striking drivers. The strike received support from some of the bus drivers. Some
refused to pass the pickets and even joined the ranks of the pickets which is why bus
services were disrupted.

Irish Rail made no attempt to take action to stop secondary picketing. It feared that
any such action might lead to the strike spreading throughout Irish rail and public
transport generally. Such a development, they believed, could threaten the relative
passivity of the working class within state transport leading to a mass abandonment by
the working class of the SIPTU and NBRU for ILDA. There was the danger too that such
developments might lead to the further unravelling of the social partnership strategy
as a device for restricting the living standards of the working class. It was the
menacing threat of the masses that restrained the state's actions.

Under pressure from the striking rail workers and the danger of the strike both
spreading and deepening it was agreed that the Labour Court and the Labour Relations
Commission conduct a joint inquiry into safety concerns over the new arrangements.
ILDA expressed its opposition with this recommendation and so continued to strike
work. They refrained from further secondary picketing. Some rail strikers were forced
to return to work because they had no income. Again the silent tactic was employed
whereby the rail strike received virtually no reporting within the media. This forced
ILDA strikers who were growing increasingly desperate and who were receiving no income
for many weeks now to engage in more militant action. The rail strikers mounted a
sit-in in the Board Room of Irish Rail. After some hours they were evicted and
arrested by the Gardai. The following day ILDA organised a march of the striking
drivers to the Labour Court where they publicly stated that they were handing
responsibility for safety over to the Labour Court. They said they will make
submissions to the Inquiry. It was important that the strike did not crumble into a
disorganized return to work by striking rail workers. It was important as belatedly
happened that the strike was ended by the leadership in an organised and disciplined
manner. Struggles, no matter how well organised and conduct, entail an element of
gambling. What is important is that under conditions of defeat workers retreat in an
organised and orderly fashion. In that way they increase the chances of minimizing the
adverse effects of defeat and are consequently in a better condition to take up the
cudgel in the future.
In short the striking workers were starved back to work. The striking workers suffered
a clear defeat as did rail workers in general. The crushing of the strike constitutes
a defeat for the working class. It is necessary to analyse this strike and draw
lessons from it that can be used in class struggle.

The train drivers that formed ILDA were, in the circumstances, politically incorrect
for forming a breakaway union. As a breakaway union they were promoting the
fragmentation of the working class. Cohesion and unity must be always a priority -on a
revolutionary communist basis of course. By forming a minuscule union, such as ILDA,
the more combative Irish rail workers were abandoning the other workers and declaring
their lack of confidence in them. They were surrendering these workers to the
reactionary trade union leadership of SIPTU and NBRU and thereby playing into the
hands of the state. This also meant that they were excluded from the negotiating
process and the voting process that was to follow. The agreement would probably not
have been passed by the workers had the ILDA workers remained within the recognised
unions and organised and agitated against the proposals. In that sense the ILDA
workers were management's and the reactionary union's leadership best ally in pushing
through the bosses agreement.

They made other mistakes. By occupying rail track, although this was a rogue action
brought on by desperation, given that their strike was about safety they committed a
tactical mistake that the bourgeoisie media exploited to demonise ILDA. Then their use
of the train for purposes of travel during the strike (although unofficial) when they
declared them unsafe was another mistake.

They then dropped their secondary picketing at a time when it was receiving some
support. It was this that led to the initiative concerning an inquiry being made. It
was therefore this tactic that should have been pursued and developed as a means of
widening and deepening theirs struggle thereby rallying more workers behind them. It
was clear that there was growing discontent and even anger among public transport
workers. Corresponding with this they should have been prepared to present more
advanced demands as a means both to develop their struggle and draw in more workers
behind them. The point is that the majority of train drivers were against the new
agreement. ILDA train drivers instead of building on this support actually broke it
up, weakened it and collapsed it. In that sense their effect was that of supporting
the interests of the management of Irish Rail -a mistake on the part of the
struggling train drivers.

As a result of their actions the strike has been successfully crushed and the train
drivers defeated. This will not help morale and may act as a discouragement to the
train drivers, and indeed other workers, taking action in the future.

The striking train drivers should have stayed in their former unions. They should have
worked within these unions to bring about change within them at rank and file and
leadership level while mobilising support against the new agreement.

When it was clear that management were not going to meet their demands, after the
inquiry had been announced, they should have returned to work. They should have issued
a statement expressing their explicit opposition with the outcome while pointing out
that it was the strike and the support it received that forced the state and other
unions to agree to an inquiry. In that way they could have gone back to work earlier
in a principled, organised and dignified manner under less demoralizing conditions.
Instead they remained out until they were ignominiously forced back to work.
Nonetheless they did, in the way that they returned to work, preserve some dignity and
maintain the organised existence in tact. However they should not have declared that
they were handing the safety issue over to the Labour Court and the Labour Relations
Commission. They should have made a general declaration that highlighted the
reactionary role of those forces that actively opposed their struggle, indicating that
theirs was a courageous and challenging struggle against the forces of capitalism.

Despite these serious criticisms it was the duty of communists to support the train
drivers once they went out on strike. Now that the strike is over it is necessary for
communists to analyse the strike and draw lessons from it.


Karl Carlile


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