Bus drivers’ strike - Unions at their Ismay moment

JOSEPH BRUCE ISMAY, once chairman of the White Star Line, the owners of the Titanic, won infamy, deserved or otherwise, for dressing as a woman to get a place on one of the last lifeboats after the liner hit an iceberg and sank almost 105 years ago to the day. 

He was so excoriated he had to spend a considerable proportion of his remaining years in seclusion at Costello Lodge in Connemara.

He was exiled by his peers because he was imagined a coward who should have gone down with his ship.

He had offended chivalry.

It may be a little far-fetched, a little colourful, even wistful, to suggest that the rules of chivalry have a place in today’s industrial relations landscape but the possibility that the bus strike might be extended to take school buses off the roads crosses a line in a way that could not be contemplated by anyone with a sense of proportion or fairness.

The unions lost considerable public sympathy when last week’s secondary picketing stranded tens of thousands of workers, but if their action prevents the thousands of children who rely on schoolbuses to get to their classrooms they will have painted themselves into a very lonely corner where they will not find a resolution.

This level of confrontation will solve nothing but it will harden attitudes and make it even more difficult to sustain the very favourable terms — and they are — the drivers enjoy. This is the unions’ Ismay moment, hopefully they will step back.