Go North East respond after bus drivers hit out over pay rise
Go North East respond after bus drivers hit out over pay rise
(06 Jul 2021, 1:25 pm)streetdeckfan For me it's down to working with people, it's something I just can't tolerate! I don't think I'd last a day before kicking off with someone.
(06 Jul 2021, 1:25 pm)streetdeckfan For me it's down to working with people, it's something I just can't tolerate! I don't think I'd last a day before kicking off with someone.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.The Streetdecks were due to arrive late 2019 and were delayed due to issues at Wright. Then the start of pandemic delayed delivery again. However, they would of saved a lot with some of the order being diverted away from the NE.
(06 Jul 2021, 1:48 pm)Storx Nice to see the usual lot are defending GNE at all costs as usual. The wage for GNE is absolutely crap especially those at a starter wage of £18,300 which is below the Living Wage of £18,525. Good on them for wanting more especially when they didn't get a wage increase in 2020. In context Stagecoach have jobs available at £9.91/hour which works out at £19,066.84 a year rising to £22876.36 after 5 years.I wouldnt turn my nose up at it. New starters at my current kind-of not anymore work place was only £17,500
There's no excuse not paying above the living wage.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.The Streetdecks were due to arrive late 2019 and were delayed due to issues at Wright. Then the start of pandemic delayed delivery again. However, they would of saved a lot with some of the order being diverted away from the NE.
(06 Jul 2021, 1:48 pm)Storx Nice to see the usual lot are defending GNE at all costs as usual. The wage for GNE is absolutely crap especially those at a starter wage of £18,300 which is below the Living Wage of £18,525. Good on them for wanting more especially when they didn't get a wage increase in 2020. In context Stagecoach have jobs available at £9.91/hour which works out at £19,066.84 a year rising to £22876.36 after 5 years.I wouldnt turn my nose up at it. New starters at my current kind-of not anymore work place was only £17,500
There's no excuse not paying above the living wage.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:36 pm)JP6004
I wouldnt turn my nose up at it. New starters at my current kind-of not anymore work place was only £17,500
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:36 pm)JP6004
I wouldnt turn my nose up at it. New starters at my current kind-of not anymore work place was only £17,500
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:41 pm)Chris 1 Not that it helps the bus drivers' lot, but new vehicles, refurbishment/repainting will be capital costs. Pay doesn't come from capital.Better than no job though
For some people it they can make it work. Throw in a mortgage, couple of kids maybe and a bit of debt and it won't go far enough.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:41 pm)Chris 1 Not that it helps the bus drivers' lot, but new vehicles, refurbishment/repainting will be capital costs. Pay doesn't come from capital.Better than no job though
For some people it they can make it work. Throw in a mortgage, couple of kids maybe and a bit of debt and it won't go far enough.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:30 pm)MurdnunoC Supposing everyone held the same opinions as you about working with the public, how would you convince someone to consider driving a bus as a career option? How would you sell the bus industry to someone who might have other career prospects?HR departments are waiting with baited breath!
(06 Jul 2021, 2:45 pm)JP6004 Better than no job thoughIt is, but if the comparison is no job then surely as soon as something else comes up paying more money then you're average bus driver with no affinity to the industry will just jump ship. And who can blame them? It just exacerbates the problem.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:30 pm)MurdnunoC Supposing everyone held the same opinions as you about working with the public, how would you convince someone to consider driving a bus as a career option? How would you sell the bus industry to someone who might have other career prospects?HR departments are waiting with baited breath!
(06 Jul 2021, 2:45 pm)JP6004 Better than no job thoughIt is, but if the comparison is no job then surely as soon as something else comes up paying more money then you're average bus driver with no affinity to the industry will just jump ship. And who can blame them? It just exacerbates the problem.
Going back many years when I first started in the industry you would find many drivers would do tour/private hire work in the summer (that's where the money was) and then do local service work in the winter.
Now in my opinion some of those that sit in the higher positions seem to easily forget what it was like as a driver, not forgetting the university trained manager whose never driven in service telling a 40 year veteran how the job should be done and you start on the slippery slope of low morale. Add in the poor shift patterns finish 00.30ish and back in for 9.30am and you'll see why some drivers are choosing a more attractive work/life balance.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:50 pm)Chris 1 HR departments are waiting with baited breath!
I think the key word there is convince. You'd struggle to 'convince' anyone! I've always considered bus driving as a vocation type of job. The industry - generally - doesn't have a very good reputation for treating staff very well and that's before you deal with the punters. Given the responsibilities of the job, and the repercussions if it all goes horribly wrong then remuneration should be higher.
I suppose to make it an attractive proposition, you'd have to highlight the freedom, the relative autonomy and the flexibility that shift work can bring. Though no matter how hard you try, you're always going to struggle to sell driving around Leam Lane at night as an attractive proposition...
It is, but if the comparison is no job then surely as soon as something else comes up paying more money then you're average bus driver with no affinity to the industry will just jump ship. And who can blame them? It just exacerbates the problem.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:50 pm)Chris 1 HR departments are waiting with baited breath!
I think the key word there is convince. You'd struggle to 'convince' anyone! I've always considered bus driving as a vocation type of job. The industry - generally - doesn't have a very good reputation for treating staff very well and that's before you deal with the punters. Given the responsibilities of the job, and the repercussions if it all goes horribly wrong then remuneration should be higher.
I suppose to make it an attractive proposition, you'd have to highlight the freedom, the relative autonomy and the flexibility that shift work can bring. Though no matter how hard you try, you're always going to struggle to sell driving around Leam Lane at night as an attractive proposition...
It is, but if the comparison is no job then surely as soon as something else comes up paying more money then you're average bus driver with no affinity to the industry will just jump ship. And who can blame them? It just exacerbates the problem.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.With the branding, if GNE painted all of their buses in corporate livery and had no brands at all, would this really have an effect on the amount of passengers using the service? I think it would hardly make any difference to the loadings at all. The average punter couldn't care less what colour the vehicle is, provided it is going where they need to go.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.With the branding, if GNE painted all of their buses in corporate livery and had no brands at all, would this really have an effect on the amount of passengers using the service? I think it would hardly make any difference to the loadings at all. The average punter couldn't care less what colour the vehicle is, provided it is going where they need to go.
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.Stagecoach will always make money due to the demographic of most of their routes (i.e mainly City Centre).
(06 Jul 2021, 2:24 pm)GNE6312 That's shocking. GNE should be held accountable for that. If they have enough money to pointlessly repaint & rebrand buses then they have enough to pay staff. Besides stagecoach have no brands and most their buses are bog standard yet they still get passengers. Arriva have a relatively old fleet with few liveries (only MAX, the 2 Sapphire liveries & their 3 corporate liveries) yet they get alot of passengers so they can't say branding brings passengers. Not to mention they could have saved the money to pay staff by not replacing the 15 plate buses on the red kite last year.Stagecoach will always make money due to the demographic of most of their routes (i.e mainly City Centre).
(06 Jul 2021, 9:28 pm)L469 YVK Stagecoach will always make money due to the demographic of most of their routes (i.e mainly City Centre).
Martijn's reasoning behind the original pre-pandemic investment and subsequent refreshes (funded by a different budget) make sense. Both will create growth.
Arriva choosing to run deckers in limp mode chasing each other through Cramlington or a tarted up B7TL will only provide a short term gain. In fact, Arriva in Blyth & Ashington will be in serious trouble if they don't improve their offering and adapt to customer expectations before BTR goes live.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:28 pm)L469 YVK Stagecoach will always make money due to the demographic of most of their routes (i.e mainly City Centre).
Martijn's reasoning behind the original pre-pandemic investment and subsequent refreshes (funded by a different budget) make sense. Both will create growth.
Arriva choosing to run deckers in limp mode chasing each other through Cramlington or a tarted up B7TL will only provide a short term gain. In fact, Arriva in Blyth & Ashington will be in serious trouble if they don't improve their offering and adapt to customer expectations before BTR goes live.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:55 am)Andreos1 Really?
Even when you add in the associated design costs (Stenning needs to make a living too - even if the designs are copied and pasted from elsewhere or created using the automatic livery generator), fuel/plus drivers to get to and from Blackburn, raw materials and labour costs... That's just off the top of my head.
Sure there will be other numbers which need to be accounted for too.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:55 am)Andreos1 Really?
Even when you add in the associated design costs (Stenning needs to make a living too - even if the designs are copied and pasted from elsewhere or created using the automatic livery generator), fuel/plus drivers to get to and from Blackburn, raw materials and labour costs... That's just off the top of my head.
Sure there will be other numbers which need to be accounted for too.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:28 pm)L469 YVK Arriva choosing to run deckers in limp mode chasing each other through Cramlington or a tarted up B7TL will only provide a short term gain. In fact, Arriva in Blyth & Ashington will be in serious trouble if they don't improve their offering and adapt to customer expectations before BTR goes live.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:28 pm)L469 YVK Arriva choosing to run deckers in limp mode chasing each other through Cramlington or a tarted up B7TL will only provide a short term gain. In fact, Arriva in Blyth & Ashington will be in serious trouble if they don't improve their offering and adapt to customer expectations before BTR goes live.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:49 pm)Storx Go North East bus drivers are moaning about wages which could potentially lead to strikes but you turn it onto Arriva as usual.
As a customer, I'd rather have a bus company with 10 year old totally adequate buses on, which turns up, than a bus company with brand new buses sitting in a depot somewhere because their drivers are on strike.
(06 Jul 2021, 9:49 pm)Storx Go North East bus drivers are moaning about wages which could potentially lead to strikes but you turn it onto Arriva as usual.
As a customer, I'd rather have a bus company with 10 year old totally adequate buses on, which turns up, than a bus company with brand new buses sitting in a depot somewhere because their drivers are on strike.
(06 Jul 2021, 1:48 pm)Storx There's no excuse not paying above the living wage.
(06 Jul 2021, 1:48 pm)Storx There's no excuse not paying above the living wage.
(07 Jul 2021, 8:16 am)Adrian Completely agree with this, but I had thought Go-Ahead voluntarily committed to paying the Living Wage years ago? I can find something from 2016 about it, but also this blog post from 2019: https://www.go-ahead.com/media/blog/why-...odie-brian
(07 Jul 2021, 8:16 am)Adrian Completely agree with this, but I had thought Go-Ahead voluntarily committed to paying the Living Wage years ago? I can find something from 2016 about it, but also this blog post from 2019: https://www.go-ahead.com/media/blog/why-...odie-brian
(07 Jul 2021, 10:05 am)Storx Yeah they did by the looks of it but just over. But since they didn't have any rise in 2020 it's now gone under slightly and the 2% won't cover it. It's where the 4% is coming from by the looks of it.Yea its not much, after a few months and you gain more experience, your grade increases to just over £19k. I remember when I first started I was on £11,800. That was many years ago. That was 37 hour week
Using a 37.5 hourly week as it's either 37/38 hours depending on the company and the base rate of £18,300
2019 - Hourly Rate: £9.38 / Living Wage: £9.30
2020 - Hourly Rate: £9.38 / Living Wage: £9.50
2021 - Hourly Rate: £9.57 (+2%) / Living Wage: N/A but likely to be roughly £9.70 at least (it usually goes up 20-30p)
With a 4% increase it would £9.76 an hour which would likely cover it.
To put it in context you get £9.55 to work in Tesco and ones a hell of a lot easier than the other - obviously there's no wage increases over the years like you get with buses though to make it balanced.
As Dan has said above Arriva are obviously having the same problems but no surprise they're having problems again (especially with Durham already being on strike over wages very recently) and the different wages between depots which is asking for trouble anyway.
Also JP6004 the £17,500 is an awful wage must be right on minimum wage I guess? Otherwise it's just ever slightly over using the same 37.5 hours that's £8.97 / week which is well under the living wage.
(07 Jul 2021, 10:05 am)Storx Yeah they did by the looks of it but just over. But since they didn't have any rise in 2020 it's now gone under slightly and the 2% won't cover it. It's where the 4% is coming from by the looks of it.Yea its not much, after a few months and you gain more experience, your grade increases to just over £19k. I remember when I first started I was on £11,800. That was many years ago. That was 37 hour week
Using a 37.5 hourly week as it's either 37/38 hours depending on the company and the base rate of £18,300
2019 - Hourly Rate: £9.38 / Living Wage: £9.30
2020 - Hourly Rate: £9.38 / Living Wage: £9.50
2021 - Hourly Rate: £9.57 (+2%) / Living Wage: N/A but likely to be roughly £9.70 at least (it usually goes up 20-30p)
With a 4% increase it would £9.76 an hour which would likely cover it.
To put it in context you get £9.55 to work in Tesco and ones a hell of a lot easier than the other - obviously there's no wage increases over the years like you get with buses though to make it balanced.
As Dan has said above Arriva are obviously having the same problems but no surprise they're having problems again (especially with Durham already being on strike over wages very recently) and the different wages between depots which is asking for trouble anyway.
Also JP6004 the £17,500 is an awful wage must be right on minimum wage I guess? Otherwise it's just ever slightly over using the same 37.5 hours that's £8.97 / week which is well under the living wage.
(07 Jul 2021, 10:19 am)JP6004 Yea its not much, after a few months and you gain more experience, your grade increases to just over £19k. I remember when I first started I was on £11,800. That was many years ago. That was 37 hour week
(07 Jul 2021, 10:19 am)JP6004 Yea its not much, after a few months and you gain more experience, your grade increases to just over £19k. I remember when I first started I was on £11,800. That was many years ago. That was 37 hour week
(07 Jul 2021, 10:43 am)Andreos1 My first job (part time) was £2.52 an hour. Well before minimum wage was even a thing.To be fair I could of easily found higher paid job but I was comfortable, that's why I'm still here 14yrs later! My first job was £3.20ph when I was 18. I left because I refused to work Christmas Day again!
Although I had ambition and didn't see myself doing that on a full-time basis, the low wages ensured I didn't become too comfortable or complacent and I moved on to something else (which paid more) a few years later.
(07 Jul 2021, 10:43 am)Andreos1 My first job (part time) was £2.52 an hour. Well before minimum wage was even a thing.To be fair I could of easily found higher paid job but I was comfortable, that's why I'm still here 14yrs later! My first job was £3.20ph when I was 18. I left because I refused to work Christmas Day again!
Although I had ambition and didn't see myself doing that on a full-time basis, the low wages ensured I didn't become too comfortable or complacent and I moved on to something else (which paid more) a few years later.
(07 Jul 2021, 10:52 am)JP6004 To be fair I could of easily found higher paid job but I was comfortable, that's why I'm still here 14yrs later! My first job was £3.20ph when I was 18. I left because I refused to work Christmas Day again!
(07 Jul 2021, 10:52 am)JP6004 To be fair I could of easily found higher paid job but I was comfortable, that's why I'm still here 14yrs later! My first job was £3.20ph when I was 18. I left because I refused to work Christmas Day again!