(05 Sep 2014, 9:50 pm)Dan wrote I know who the majority of members are on here, as I typically go through each new member's profile to ensure they're 'legit'. Only a tiny percentage remain anonymous, and an even smaller percentage successfully remain anonymous - aureolin pointed out earlier that some people aren't very good at it!
I understand your concerns as an employee at Crook; but as you can imagine, if profits go up as a result of the movement of a depot's operations, it's a very appealing proposal for management to make.
A vigorous 90-day consultation period would take place prior to the movement of operations and associated closures, and this is the time when I'd imagine that Trade Unions would get involved to convey your (and your colleagues') messages to management, and to possibly come to some sort of agreement during the consultation period.
Chester-le-Street currently houses 28 coaches for National Express (although some are obviously away overnight etc), but if they all moved out to Riverside, there would be more than enough room for Crook's operations to move in. From management's point of view opposed to yours, as an employee at Crook, you'd be mad if you couldn't actually see that. There are a shedload of advantages to the company that would come with this merger, which is why I imagine it's not something that should be palmed off as an idea which isn't ever going to happen.
I assume your example in the past of this happening was with Arriva? Who's to say Go North East aren't going to follow in a similar footpath?
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"!