(19 Feb 2025, 12:34 am)stagecoachbusdepot wrote It does seem a bit odd though for the drivers to resign - as others have said, red light comes on, refuse to drive.  If you are then disciplined/suspended etc - force the companies hand to put in writing the company position was they should have continued driving, in breach of their own policy, now in writing.  I suspect GNE wouldn't get far in the barrage of emplument tribunals that would follow.

While I do sympathise with the drivers in the article (and wider - it does sound an awful toxic organisation to work for) I suspect this is a bit less one sided than it's being portrayed by the unions.  Surely the issue is being required to drive a dangerous vehicle - whether you've signed bit of paper or not the outcome could still be calamitous and you'd still be culpable in the eyes of the law in control (or not, as the case may be) of a defective vehicle even if you havent signed a bit of paper for GNE.

I agree the resignations may seem a bit odd, but it's not uncommon when people are facing a misconduct/gross misconduct hearing, as has been suggested. I'd personally always have advised my colleagues to go through the due process, because not doing so can make it difficult at a tribunal, if it gets to that stage. The exception of course being constructive dismissal, which I think this is the route these will probably go down.

I think you could argue that the dispute goes from one extreme to the other, if you read the company's comment followed by the Union's article. As we suggested above, the company are clearly trying to trivialise it with their comment about deckers and low bridges. This doesn't differ far from the position they took during the 2023 pay dispute. 

I'm actually surprised the company have been daft enough to ask someone to sign something to the effect that is being reported (and having been seen by the media). Having dealt with the HSE before, I'd expect they'd take an extremely dim view of this kind of practice; the DVSA and Traffic Commissioner more so. 

(19 Feb 2025, 10:01 am)DeltaMan wrote There is a "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" between drivers and controllers.

A driver needs to clock off on time, but they are running late. A controller will regulate the service.

In return, the driver may just "keep going" if asked by the controllers when there is a fault.

Flip that around, driver sees a red warning light, tells control of this. Controller tells driver to continue, driver doesn't. Controller then won't do any more favours.

I imagine this is what the "briefing" is all about - setting in stone what should be happening.

The obvious answer is for the company to get it's act together so that staff don't feel like they have to mask what is happening on the road. But that would require a properly resourced control team and more engineering staff. But as we all know GNE made a bunch of staff redundant not long ago and Big Nige thinks they are fully resourced engineering wise lol

On the first point, and without having seen either, I'd imagine there's a contractual term or Union agreement in place? In most places it happens in most places out of good will, as there's no legislation (that I'm aware of!) that allows an employers to force workers to work over.

If there's a culture of encouraging drivers to ignore safety issues, in return for receiving favourable treatment, then that is completely unacceptable and needs exposing asap. It's also in breach of the protections afforded to workers by Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act.

On the latter point, yeah, you've got it spot on. It seems to have been a never-ending issue for decades about how long it seems to take drivers to get through to control. Actually having controllers with engineering knowledge would be good too, but I'm sure they'll get a couple of grads in that only have the words "Yes Sir" in their vocabulary.