On this morning’s news it was announced that Dublin Bus workers are to press ahead with strike action tomorrow on a number of routes.

At the heart of the dispute is break entitlements and shift rotas. The company wants to upgrade services including improving service frequencies which would entail some buses turning and swapping drivers in the city centre. The drivers however want every shift and break to start and end at its new state of the art staff headquarters beside Dublin airport.

Trade Unions play a valuable role in our society. They were a necessary protection against widespread exploitation of powerless workers as industrial revolution style abuses threatened to continue in the modern age. Many Trade Unions had to battle long and hard for recognition and to attain the right of representation for their members and more than some blood was spilt along the way.

A cause celebré of the Trade Union movement was Joe Hill, a migrant worker who became involved with the Industrial Worker movementc and ended up as a labour organiser at a mine in Salt Lake City. He campaigned on behalf of dockers, miners and any that could not defend themselves. So successful was his sedition ‘the bosses’ eventually had him executed on a trumped up charge but his spirit refused to die and the ballad that bears his name implores workers “Don’t mourn, but organise..”

In Ireland Trade Unions have played a positive and powerful role not least in the era of the Celtic Tiger. An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD, when Minister for Labour did much to forge ties with the movement and that understanding was cemented into social partnership which has underpinned much of our recent economic success and stability.

I had various experiences of casual labour in a variety of college jobs ranging from barman to ghost train attendant. In particular I spent a summer working the night shift in a manufacturing plant. There I witnessed a two-tier system of unspoken division between blue and white collar roles, regular workplace accidents, pressure to make production targets, and worst of all, contempt from foremen only a week off the floor themselves (the working class can kiss my ass I’ve got the supervisors job at last) and a host more examples. That experience taught me the value of Trade Unions in protecting working conditions and the rights of those too easily downtrodden. Today I continue solidarity through membership of Amicus union in my own workplace and represent my own division on internal committees.

But it is hard to muster sympathy for the current gripes of Dublin bus drivers. Far from an exploited underclass these workers enjoy gym facilities, leisure centre, subsidised canteen, job security, pensions, genourous training allowances, illness pay and a host of privileges unrivalled in most public or private employments. And yet they will hold Dublin to a standstill in a measure that will hit ordinary workers most, all because now they may now not get a game of pool in on every break. These workers don’t know how good they have it. It’s a long way from the Silver King mines..