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Following
the brutal and vicious attack on a Citybus driver
on Wednesday 28th May, Translink and the union ATGWU
and some of our elected representatives were interviewed
by the local media. As usual they cried about the
vicious attack on an innocent driver.
This
morning, Thursday 29th May, on Radio Ulster John Coffey,
chairman of the Citybus drivers union ATGWU, threatened
the withdrawal of buses in working class communities
in Northern Ireland as a result of these attacks.
Why?
These thugs and hoodlums are not from the working
class communities. The working class communities do
not support these thugs; why do the ATGWU want to
punish the working class instead of attacking the
scum who attack public service workers?
This
is a typical and expected response from a bureaucratic
careerist who is only too happy to deliver the company’s
line and pass the blame on to the community where
the attack took place rather than face the issue head
on.
Over
two years ago I made Translink, the ATGWU’s GS
Bill Morris, regional officer Joe McCusker, and chairmen
of both Ulsterbus and Citybus branches John Coffey
and Davey Glover, the Northern Ireland Health and
Safety Executive and all the political partys in Stormont
aware of a plan introduced by Dublin Bus in 1996.
Only
SF, PUP, Alliance and the Women’s Coalition offered
any support; both the DUP and the UUP thanked me for
the letter and the SDLP didn’t even reply.
The
following report is by a working group established
by the minister for justice Mrs Nora Owen T.D. which
was made up of government ministers the police and
the unions.
The
plan was to become known as the Edinburgh plan as
it was basis on the operations of Edinburgh buses.
The main body of the plan was:
(1)
Drivers no longer handled cash: “it fell into
a secure box which the driver has no control of;
this action would prevent robberies.”
(2) Improved cab security, better protection for drivers
(3) Better communication between the police, street
cleansing department, local resident groups, Translink
management, and the trade unions.
If
the ATGWU is serious about tackling this cancer in
the community they should be calling on the security
minister Jane Kennedy to establish a task force that
should include all of the above.
Questions
must be asked like why, when there is a plan that
has shown to be effective, have the government, unions,
and the H&S executive not implemented it?
The
ATGWU should be asking these questions and not pushing
the company’s line.
The
members should be asking why it was left to a lay
member of the union to be interviewed by the media
and not the fulltime official who is supposed to be
the public face of the union.
Talk
is cheap, the drivers want action, not crocodile tears.
It’s time the unions realise they have a responsibility
to their members.
Sean
Smyth was medically retired from Citybus because of
assaults
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