(05 Sep 2014, 10:18 pm)RGR756V wrote Oh I can see the advantages to the company in moving our work to Chester, I'm not as green as you and others may think. Yes I've been through a depot closure before and the upheavals it caused were immense, the effects of which are still felt nearly 5 years down the line by some former colleagues, however in that case it is pretty much seen as a bad decision, though that is by-the-by now.
Believe it or not, were it not for the performance of service 18 then I do think that Crook would have closed last year with the demise of the OK1.
Crook was there to cut the dead mileage on the 21/X21 and it works, and as I suggested, when the newer stuff comes, in whatever shape it is, we will regain a working on an evening and Sunday which would more than likely entail us doing the last bus finishing at Bishop.
You have to remember as well, the facilities we use at Crook are much better than what Consett and Peterlee have - there is no need for a fitter to visit every morning as Weardale are contracted to do all the light oily stuff if needed.
As for a 90 day consultation, that would not apply in our case as we are an outstation, and merely classed as an extra rota in the Chester operations. When OK1 finished, there were a surplus of drivers that merely volunteered to go to Chester, however if there were no volunteers, then apparently a system was in place which worked on seniority. The bulk of those drivers bar 1 lived in the Durham area and made sense for them to transfer. There was little TU involvement.
As one of the supervisors, I like to try and keep the lads spirits up as, at the end of the day, we need to keep and gain more passengers from Arriva, and I don't want them going on the road with that sort of worry hanging over them - as you correctly predicted, I have been there before and still have the t-shirt! The new College special has actually been a bit of a boost because it has shown to us that the company is still looking for ways to expand in Bishop, despite having our fingers burned with the OK1, even though the lads on the front line could not have done much more than they did.
I have approached my manager in the recent past about the possibility of coaching moving to Riverside, and the consequence for Crook as a result, but the social media policy that I have signed to restricts me to keeping the inner depths of those conversations to myself, in short though, the answer was "no"!
A point of clarity without fueling speculation. If there were more than 20 that refused to move locations then it'd be a redundancy situation, and the 90 days consultation period would need to take place. This is covered under s188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, whether it's a location covered by a collective bargaining agreement or not.
On a more positive note I'd actually love to see Crook expand. Simply because I'd like to see them give Arriva some real competition in Durham again.