(27 Oct 2023, 6:19 pm)ReDemPTiion wrote Some people in here really need to give their head a wobble. The strike is not all about pay. The drivers don’t want to have to do this but the company have given them no option.
Let me ask you this. If you couldn’t go to the toilet for 5 and a half hours how would you feel?
Finishing work 12am and back in 9/10am the next day, would you be happy with that?
Constantly being asked to work your days off because they don’t have enough staff because of the low pay and poor conditions only to work the overtime and get abuse from passengers because people complain about the missing buses.
Shifts being stretched to the maximum and breaks being shorted as much as possible to get the most work out of the drivers as possible.
What the passengers don’t see is how staff are treat behind closed doors all you’s see is someone sat driving a bus, might be smiling but is probably fed up sick of all the crap they face on a daily basis. Probably looking for other jobs but can’t find anything and stuck doing this job.
I understand some villages, towns etc only Go North East serve and it’s going to be awful for them but it’s management that are to blame for this not anyone else.
I don’t work for Go North East but I do work for a big bus company in the north east and I’m fully supporting them. Yes everything is going to be s**t for the next few weeks but the company won’t let it last the full 12 weeks they’ll reach an agreement with the union but it will take some time.
Sorry for the rant but things really need to change. I’ve been doing this job for 8 years and ever since I started it’s gone downhill. Pay and conditions should be the same across the country never mind lower in the north where we do the same amount of work that people down south do.
This is the sort of messaging the Union should be sharing and one the wider bus user population, GNE pension holders and Tory light enthusiasts on here should take heed of
How bloody difficult the job is, how bad management is but how the job is done by people who care and want the best.