Northern Ireland transit, education workers walkout over pay

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Northern Ireland transit, education workers walkout over pay

Northern Ireland was hit by transport chaos Thursday as public transit and education workers walked out on strike in a dispute over pay involving thousands of members of three big unions. Photo by Mark Marlow/EPA-EFE

Northern Ireland was hit by widespread disruption Thursday as public transit and education workers walked out on strike in a long-running dispute over pay involving thousands of members of three big unions.

The walkout by 8,000 employees of public transit authority Translink meant no trains or buses were running, causing serious traffic disruption as people took to their cars to get to work and school. Advertisement

Thursday’s action, the first of four strike days planned for February by thousands of members of the Unite, GMB and SIPTU unions, is the sixth one-day strike since the beginning of December.

Some schools were forced to shut by industrial action by school bus staff, school caterers, administration staff and classroom assistants who set up picket lines outside many facilities. More than 800 Unite union members are scheduled to take their strike through into a second day on Friday.

The strikes come two weeks after Northern Ireland was crippled by a walkout by 100,000 public employees in the country’s largest-ever strike that saw schools and colleges close, all trains and buses stop running, snow-covered roads left unplowed, medical appointments canceled and government offices shuttered. Advertisement

Thursday’s industrial action went ahead despite the prospect of restarting the country’s power-sharing government as early as Saturday after a deal was struck Tuesday between Westminister and the Democratic Unionist Party after it had been put on hold for years effectively freezing public sector pay and promotion since the end of 2021.

New legislation and changes to the European Union Withdrawal Agreement Act, required in order to implement the concessions contained in the agreement ending the DUP’s boycott, are set to be debated in the House of Commons on Thursday.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said restoration of the power-sharing executive at the country’s Stormont assembly will allow Northern Ireland to tap $4.3 billion in central government funds to deal with the public sector pay crisis.

The money has been on hold in treasury coffers for two years because only locally elected politicians are legally empowered to spend it but unions have been urging the minister to “do the right thing and release the funds.”

“Regardless of the latest developments at Stormont, our members are still facing the prospect of a 0% [pay] offer made last year being imposed,” said GMB regional organizer Peter Macklin.

“A few years ago, these workers were being hailed as frontline heroes. They deserve better and they are ready and willing to strike to secure it.” Advertisement

Unite regional coordinating officer Davy Thompson accused Heaton-Harris of obfuscation over the funding package.

“The Secretary of State has never actually set out and said ‘Well here’s this for X for here, here’s this for that’ so we don’t actually know what’s in the deal and what that means for our members,” he said.

“We have members looking quite clearly at this deal and saying ‘Well, what does it do for us?'”

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