(20 Mar 2024, 7:54 am)mb134 wrote The starting pay at Arriva Northumbria, especially that for license holders (£11.19), is massively below what both GNE (£14.27) and Stagecoach (£14.30) are offering. That's not on the union, that's on incompetent management and not understanding the labour market they're hiring in. 

You then have few experienced drivers joining, the new recruits you do have leaving quickly, and the rest of the drivers becoming increasingly annoyed at the abuse they're receiving because management aren't doing their jobs properly - so they leave too.

I don't think the behaviour of the Union has been great, but Arriva management and the decisions they've made for a few years has caused morale to constantly drop and abuse from passengers to constantly rise. I don't blame the drivers for wanting a break from that one bit, especially when the company is making no attempt to fix the underlying issues.

Living wage goes up to £11.44 imminently so that £11.19 will surely have to?  Even worse when it takes 2 year to get to top rate, rather than the 1 year quoted by both GNE & SCNE. 

Or is the reality different and the information on the website is out of date?