(21 Sep 2023, 2:03 pm)morritt89 wrote I assume it will be longer shifts (similar to the current 4 day shifts) with more and longer unpaid breaks. That said when you sign up your asked if you want to opt out of the 48 hour (I think it is) working week (so you can do overtime).
Those on paid meal breaks could change to unpaid meal breaks with last year's pay rise meaning they got a higher hourly rate for essentially selling the meal breaks back to the company.
Realistically, is it even possible to get every driver at every depot on the same pay, terms and conditions? I'm sure it was said when I was there that Riverside have the highest hourly rate but nobody there has paid meal breaks as they gave them up for the higher rate per hour.
I wonder why the salary of those higher up the food chain, NF et al aren't questioned when there is pay talks. Surely it's his decisions or his say so on decisions that have led to the poor company preformance/lack of profits? Drivers can only drive the vehicles given at the times they are told to run. Not their fault if nobody sees that as an alternative to car travel.
It can be tricky yeah, because even if you agreed through collective bargaining to do it now, there's always the possibility you'll win a big piece of work and then take new drivers in on TUPE terms. This, I suspect, will be more common in a world of franchising.
The problem that I see, is that people like NF always think that they're doing a great job, when the reality is that they probably have little clue what it's like on the ground. To be frank, a lot of customers are sick to the back teeth of bus operators at the minute. Yet very little of that is down to the actions or responsibility of the person behind the wheel, who usually takes the flack.