(09 Nov 2023, 12:41 pm)Adrian wrote What a load of nonsense. You know fine well that it's the responsibility of the company to provide the service that they've committed to delivering, whether that be their own commercial offerings or the public sector work they've signed a contract to take on. If they've pushed their workforce to the point that they're out on strike, then that is also their responsibility to resolve.
Nobody wants to go out on strike. It's an absolute last resort, because even when it's 'resolved', there's often months if not years of animosity to deal with, both amongst the workforce and between management & workers. No Union ever calls a strike with the sole aim to disrupt the public, but it's unavoidable in some sectors.
The difference here is that you have a company putting out propaganda and frankly outrageous statements, whereas the Union is simply continuing it's strike action. If you take the rose-tinted glasses off for a second, you'll see how blatant it is that GNE are trying to win a dispute by creating a culture war. It's an absolutely ridiculous way to behave, when at the end of the day, those Union members out on strike are still their employees.
And that leaflet posted by Unite wasn't a load of propaganda?
Both sides are as bad as each other.
As for the strike being a last resort, I'm not buying that, if Unite weren't handing out cash to the drivers do you think they'd have voted for the strike?
While the drivers are obviously suffering a financial loss going on strike, it's nowhere near as bad as they'd want you to think.
As I've said before, GNE have absolutely no incentive to give in to the demands.
They're already making a loss, they don't even have enough money to pay the drivers their current wages never mind more. Sure the group that owns them are making absolute bank, but why would they hand out cash to little GNE that's only going to go down the drain.
Surely from the group's point of view they're better off cutting their losses?
Even if GNE give in and give them whatever pay rise they want, where is that money going to come from? Seriously?
They can't increase their fares because of the £2 cap.
Day ticket prices (which I believe make up a substantial proportion of their income, although I'm happy to be corrected) are being slashed with the new TNE tickets.
Passenger numbers still aren't back to 'normal'.
They're running near end of life buses on front line services, with no funds to replace them.
So again I ask, where does the money come from?
The only answer I can think of is cuts to services. And what happens when they cut services, they don't need as many drivers.
Now, maybe my Tory brain is too smooth to understand, so I'm being genuine here when I ask, how do you envisage them getting out of this pickle they're in?