School strike threatens transport jobs

Education

Children's rights being 'violated'

Thursday, October 11, 2007

By Lisa Smyth

Transport staff affected by the Nipsa strike are facing job losses as the industrial action showed little sign of coming to an end.

Employers were threatening they could be forced to implement job cuts as they struggle to cope with the financial implications of the classroom assistant strike.

While special educational needs pupils across the province remain at home, the bus companies responsible for transporting them to and from school are not being paid.

One boss, who did not want to be named, said: "If this goes on I am definitely looking at laying people off this week. You're talking about three people this week and three people next week if it's not sorted out.

"It's the same in all the bus companies. We spend tens of thousands of pounds on buying the vehicles so they are properly able to transport the children.

"We haven't been getting very much feedback from the Boards. We've been getting in touch with them to find out if we will be needed and they keep telling us to watch the evening news to find out if the strike is being stopped and whether the schools will be opening again. We're on standby and not able to take on other work because we don't know when the schools will be back. I don't really blame the classroom assistants but something has to be done to help us out."

The Belfast employer said that while he did not blame the classroom assistants for staging a strike, more needs to be done to protect business affected by the dispute.

He continued: "We feel like we have been forgotten in all of this. We only get paid for the days that we transport the children and to give you an idea of how badly this is impacting on us if we miss a few days we only just break even. We tried dealing with this at the beginning by getting the lads to take their holidays but this is running on and our holidays are also dictated by the school holidays, so we can't really do that.

"We might not have the running costs of the vehicles, but I still have to pay my employees even when they're not working.

"I always did manual jobs but went back and got qualifications so I could start my own business and look where it has got me. If this goes on I will be out of business."