Hundreds of thousands of Dublin Bus passengers are facing six days of disruption in September with staff set to stage a series of strikes.

Trade unions will today serve formal notice on the company of the planned stoppages, with the dispute believed to involve up to three strikes of 48-hours duration each next month.

More than 330,000 passengers use Dublin Bus services every day.

Five trade unions representing the 3,200 staff at the State-owned bus company met yesterday to consider a joint strategy for the forthcoming industrial action.

Formal notice

However, it is expected that the dispute will involve a series of strikes, each lasting a full two days.

Unions have to give the company seven days notice of strike action so any stoppages will not take place until the middle of next week at the earliest.

The industrial action comes after staff at the company rejected a Labour Court recommendation of pay increases of 8.2 per cent over three years.

Unions at the company are seeking increases of about 15 per cent over three years, dating back to January this year, as well as a 6 per cent rise originally due in 2009 under the former “Towards 2016” national agreement that was never paid.

However, bus drivers represented by the National Bus and Railworkers’ Union are looking for pay parity with drivers on the Luas light rail system, which could involve increases of up to 31 per cent.

Luas increases

Staff at Dublin Bus have argued that the Luas dispute revealed for the first time the pay gap that existed between them and workers in the privately operated light rail system.

The unions involved in the talks yesterday included Siptu, the National Bus and Railworkers’ Union, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, Unite and the TEEU.

Minister for Transport Shane Ross expressed his disappointment at the outcome of the recent union ballots to reject the Labour Court pay recommendation and urged unions and management “to re-engage as soon as possible with a view to an early settlement”.