Go North East - 2023 Pay Deal and Industrial Action

[DeltaMan]

To respond on a couple of points -

I suggested security at the Galleries Bus Station. They have rest/canteen facilities for drivers there, and it's far from uncommon for workplaces to have a security presence. Following the incident the other night, it should be considered a must, even just on a temporary basis. And I do seriously expect them to take the safety of their employees seriously.

On 'everyone jumping on a strike bandwagon',  it may seem like that, but most of us who have  either spent time out on strike or have ran disputes, the issues are broadly similar: workers being asked to pay the cost of a pandemic and cost of living crisis, staffing being cut to the brim and either pensions or terms attacked. For most of these people on strike; doctors, nurses, paramedics, train drivers, bus drivers, they spent the best part of the last 3 years being hailed as heroes of a pandemic. But its not only the past 3 years, its more than a decade of below inflation or frozen pay, which has all come to a head now.

Placing buses and train drivers to one side for a moment, the vast majority of these other roles, people would love to get into them. Nursing in particular, has always been a sought-after and rewarding role, with a career for an institution that looked after you for life. Again, decimated through austerity, staffing cuts and attacks on pensions, pay and terms. Applications in particular dropped by almost half, once the Government scrapped the bursary that was available to train and become a nurse. The same applies for doctors really. You've got roles that are highly skilled, require extensive education, yet education, through the rise of tuition fees, has been taken out of reach of a lot of people.

As for taking a step back, let's look at Go Ahead for example, seeing as this thread I'd about the GNE strike. Christian Schreyer, as Group CEO, is currently taking £8,333 per month in a relocation allowance*. This is on top of an annual salary of £550,000. That relocation allowance alone is worth nearly 100k a year, which is almost 4x what a new starter will likely earn with GNE... and they don't have the whopping salary to add to it.

So when you say 'every company is struggling', it's funny how they always find money for those at the top...

* see corporate governance report: https://www.go-ahead.com/download_file/view/1853/676

What should Christian Schreyer be earning?

[Adrian]

What should Christian Schreyer be earning?

Something more representative of other salaries paid by the company?

You can't cry poverty on one hand and dish it out to the top 1% with the other. It's why we have such a problem with inequality.

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[BusLoverMum]

At that sort of salary plus allowance, you would expect him to work miracles across the entire group.

[MurdnunoC]

There's only so much they can do, unfortunately. Staff shouldn't be putting themselves at risk, and we're taught this extensively in retail as well. If we do we're open to ridicule on social media because society is so woke and people think 'I can do what I want'.

Surely if society was so 'woke' people would be more sympathetic on social media, not ridiculing the plight of a shop worker who decided to take action and put themselves in harms way?

Presuming you haven't just heard the term bandied around in a derogatory tone without any real context attached, what do you think 'woke' means?

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[Adrian]

At that sort of salary plus allowance, you would expect him to work miracles across the entire group.

And this is before getting on to his bonus, which was over 500k, in the current annual report, for a part year served as CEO.

I don't accept that a company is struggling when they can pay one person almost £1 million in a year. Its obscene.

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[Ambassador]

Thats the reality of capitalism - he's doing his job well to an extent the wider group is making profit. In scale, you could argue his pay isn't in line with the profit he returns.

On a side note of irony, holding the ACAS talks on World Car Free Day is delicious

[Adrian]

Thats the reality of capitalism - he's doing his job well to an extent the wider group is making profit. In scale, you could argue his pay isn't in line with the profit he returns.

On a side note of irony, holding the ACAS talks on World Car Free Day is delicious

I'm not against the company (or any other) doing well. It's of course needed to create jobs, but this is against the backdrop of this quote "Go North East made losses of £4.3m in its most recently published accounts and a key sticking point in the talks has been the need to address this by modernising some working practices across its six depots."

The company are making losses, so they've decided that it's the lowest paid that need to suffer for it. Not those raking in big time.

I wonder if it's a modern working practice to pay someone £8,333 a month in relocation allowance, on top of a £550,000 annual salary to live on? He must have been really struggling to make ends meet!

[Andreos1]

I'm not against the company (or any other) doing well. It's of course needed to create jobs, but this is against the backdrop of this quote "Go North East made losses of £4.3m in its most recently published accounts and a key sticking point in the talks has been the need to address this by modernising some working practices across its six depots."

The company are making losses, so they've decided that it's the lowest paid that need to suffer for it. Not those raking in big time. 

I wonder if it's a modern working practice to pay someone £8,333 a month in relocation allowance, on top of a £550,000 annual salary to live on? He must have been really struggling to make ends meet!

The bonkers thing being, that those being rewarded handsomely are the ones who are messing the company (or divisions) up and helping influence those losses. This isn't just about CS, although on that salary, I'd expect him to do something constructive about the loss making side of things.

Whilst those being paid the least are the customer facing drivers, bearing the brunt of the repeatedly poor decision making.

[Chris 1]

Just been reading through the comments on the GNE facebook page about the strike action. A common theme is the disagreement is more T&Cs rather than just money, with comments that breaks will be shorter and more of it will be unpaid. The one that caught my eye though was 'drivers will be forced to work 50hrs a week...' What's that all about?

[morritt89]

Just been reading through the comments on the GNE facebook page about the strike action.  A common theme is the disagreement is more T&Cs rather than just money, with comments that breaks will be shorter and more of it will be unpaid.  The one that caught my eye though was 'drivers will be forced to work 50hrs a week...' What's that all about?

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.

[Adrian]

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.

[morritt89]

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.

It's funny that you mention TUPE. When GNE cancelled my contract (I used to do the 4274 Coxhoe scholars) I, in theory could have stayed with the contract and went to the new operator (JH I believe) but GNE management didn't know how TUPE worked (it was also suggested to the Union as an option) but instead I wad paid off.

The thing with NF is he has a reputation but those who hired him must know something or think he is good. I had the misfortune of working at Arriva when he was there too. Is what is happening now at GNE a watered down version of what he did at GNW with fire and rehire (without the firing and rehiring)? 

Each operator has their own advantages and disadvantages to work for (hourly rate, depot location, minimum guaranteed hours etc) but if these were all broadly similar would that help the situation rather than a race to the bottom with terms and conditions? I know of a driver who went from GNE and straight onto his preferred rota (splits) at Stagecoach.

[Andreos1]

It's funny that you mention TUPE. When GNE cancelled my contract (I used to do the 4274 Coxhoe scholars) I, in theory could have stayed with the contract and went to the new operator (JH I believe) but GNE management didn't know how TUPE worked (it was also suggested to the Union as an option) but instead I wad paid off. 

The thing with NF is he has a reputation but those who hired him must know something or think he is good. I had the misfortune of working at Arriva when he was there too. Is what is happening now at GNE a watered down version of what he did at GNW with fire and rehire (without the firing and rehiring)? 

Each operator has their own advantages and disadvantages to work for (hourly rate, depot location, minimum guaranteed hours etc) but if these were all broadly similar would that help the situation rather than a race to the bottom with terms and conditions? I know of a driver who went from GNE and straight onto his preferred rota (splits) at Stagecoach.

That's appalling. 
Genuinely shocked that the transfer wasn't completed or the group didn't know/seek out info on TUPE. 

Mind, it wouldn't have been half bad if you got the money and then got a job with JH or elsewhere straight off. 
Just the uncertainty in between.

[Ambassador]

Im not totally surprised at GNE and the tupe piece.

Nigel is there to cut costs and GNE is run on the cheap, you only need to look at the management team in place, they’re cheap and effective at doing what they’re told. There’s probably some decent people in there but they’re not well lead and haven’t been for ages.

Be interested to see what the new bus CEO at Go Ahead does.

[Storx]

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.

In London, I know they've all agreed a rule within the franchisee agreements that any TUPE employees are guaranteed their current rate for 6 months, which was approved with the unions, then drop down to their new employers terms after that.

There's big problems with a few Arriva London drivers as they're being told to TUPE to another operator, who pay less, so don't want to but if they stay with Arriva they lose all their employment status and work as effectively as a new driver since there's no work for them.

Assume it'd be similar up here under franchising.

[Adrian]

In London, I know they've all agreed a rule within the franchisee agreements that any TUPE employees are guaranteed their current rate for 6 months, which was approved with the unions, then drop down to their new employers terms after that.

There's big problems with a few Arriva London drivers as they're being told to TUPE to another operator, who pay less, so don't want to but if they stay with Arriva they lose all their employment status and work as effectively as a new driver since there's no work for them.

Assume it'd be similar up here under franchising.

That's interesting, and something I understood to be illegal? The incoming employer usually isn't allowed to make changes to someone's contract as a result of the transfer. Trying to reduce someone's wage because they pay existing staff less, is a good example of that.

Have you got a link to or copy of that agreement?

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[Storx]

That's interesting, and something I understood to be illegal? The incoming employer usually isn't allowed to make changes to someone's contract as a result of the transfer. Trying to reduce someone's wage because they pay existing staff less, is a good example of that.

Have you got a link to or copy of that agreement?

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Just checked it again, it seems as part of the TUPE they have to sign it with the 6 months contract terms. Seems to be on the questionable side of legality and not formally supported by unions but they don't seem to disapprove of it either.

https://tangytango.proboards.com/thread/...n?page=576 - It's all discussed in here. No surprise who's been mentioned aswell as one of them doing it. I just skim through once in a blue moon to see if anything is heading up here.

Mind talking about this thread, it highlights one real negative of franchising and it being a real race to the bottom since it's all about lowest bids. Pay your drivers more = you won't win the contract at all.

[Unber43]

With the talks being Friday I hope they release timetables if any before hand incase nothing comes about the talks as 3-6pm the day before the strike would be awful

[Ambassador]

With the talks being Friday I hope they release timetables if any before hand incase nothing comes about the talks as 3-6pm the day before the strike would be awful

Most large businesses will already have made the decision, as I did, to mandate working from home and authorise taxis for essential needs only. 

Public transport (or at least go north east in honesty) are on our ops resilience plan

[Jimmi]

With the talks being Friday I hope they release timetables if any before hand incase nothing comes about the talks as 3-6pm the day before the strike would be awful

I'd imagine mid to late next week for any info on service levels at a guess based on previous strike action from other companies and proposed strike action from GNE.

For service levels, my assumptions is priority being services around peak times and school times/scholars then whatever can be sourced beyond that.