(14 Sep 2021, 11:22 am)Storx wrote Jesus blaming the unions, the staff are underpaid. The 3.2% once you account for the NI increase and inflation won't be an increase at all and that's ignoring the inflation for last year aswell when a year was skipped.

It's baffling the love for corporates in suits on here at times who don't care about anyone bar the dividend they can get at the end of year which is kept by keeping staff wages as low as they can, even if they're below the living wage.

The third option is have a happy work force who are happy to work for you with an increased wage and actually stay in their job thus less training needed since you don't have a massive turnover. At the same time you have happy drivers who provide customer service beyond what they need to, offering the right tickets, saying hello when passengers board buses and going beyond their working hours doing overtime because their proud of their job all resulting in a better passenger experience. Similar could be said behind the scenes with staff who go beyond what they need to, go that extra step in cleaning and fixing buses which all is a better experience. It's better than the current grumpy drivers who want out, buses which normal times are absolutely manky and I can't comment on the engineering staff but there's a lot of breakdowns (but don't want to blame that on them).

The starting rates are borderline poverty pay, so it's no wonder there's a driver shortage. Given the constant recruitment across the region, it would suggest turnover/natural attrition is high anyway, but further accelerated by the pandemic and drivers simply not returning from the EU after Brexit.

I somewhat agree with staff going beyond, and I think most employees naturally do when they take pride in their job or even something keeping them in their job. The offer of better working conditions, shifts and so on, usually makes one employer standout amongst others. I don't agree with people working beyond their working hours and doing overtime though, because it stops staff from having a work-life balance. Overtime should always be optional and a last resort.

I do like the way that higher fares or charges onto a customer is always thrown up, every time we discuss workers receiving a pay rise, but how many of us think of that and reject our own pay rises for the same reason? Seriously, we need to stop pitting workers against workers and creating a race to the bottom.