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Post by daveb0789 on Mar 29, 2013 13:40:30 GMT
When I drove buses back in the late 90s commuters would use the bus for relatively long journeys ie Tottenham Court Road to Hampstead Heath or Norwood Bus Garage to Hoborn or even Greenwich to the Elephant and Castle. But with increased traffic levels leading to increased journey times I wonder if commuters are switching to tubes and trains for those longer journeys ?
Don't you find commuters a bit miserable?
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Post by busdryver on Mar 29, 2013 14:30:50 GMT
Unfortunately, this change can only be seen as a negative for bus drivers. I'll explain why.
At the moment, (and I will use generic examples which do not reflect reality, but they are used to demonstrate things), the 185 route is run by London Central, and they pay drivers £15.00 an hour, when the route is tendered, Abellio need to bear in mind that they are likely to receive the majority of drivers for the route at the £15.00 an hour rate, and have to tender with that in mind.
If the fact that they can refuse to accept TUPE drivers, they no longer have to assume that they will have to take the expensive London General drivers, and can tender assuming that they can recruit new drivers at £8.00 an hour.
The expensive London General drivers will be made redundant at minimum cost to the outgoing operator (Government minimum) and they will have no choice (if they want to stay driving) but to work at Abellio at the new £8.00 an hour.
Abellio win loads of work, as they are willing to pay rock-bottom rates, London General lose work, therefore introduce new lower starter rates, and so the race to the bottom occurs.
Who wins out of this?
Abellio - Short term yes, but then everyone comes and joins them at the bottom
London General - Short term no, but they then take on people at new low low rates
TfL - laugh all the way to the bank, as the operators fight each other to cut tender costs in the knowledge that they don't have to take expensive drivers on
Drivers - lose, lose and lose again[/color]
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Post by daveb0789 on Mar 29, 2013 17:10:29 GMT
I don't think they can afford to train a whole new batch of bus drivers for the entire route and so only pay them £8 an hour. They will have to take on existing pcv drivers or have problems running a full service. Those PCV drivers will demand much more than £8 an hour as there are plenty of firms who pay more.
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Post by Swadbus on Mar 29, 2013 17:38:53 GMT
I still maintain the the driver CPC will push rates up a little bit. Already having a current driver CPC makes somebody more desirable over somebody who needs to gain their hours or be trained.
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Post by rambo on Mar 29, 2013 18:44:22 GMT
Unfortunately, this change can only be seen as a negative for bus drivers. I'll explain why. At the moment, (and I will use generic examples which do not reflect reality, but they are used to demonstrate things), the 185 route is run by London Central, and they pay drivers £15.00 an hour, when the route is tendered, Abellio need to bear in mind that they are likely to receive the majority of drivers for the route at the £15.00 an hour rate, and have to tender with that in mind. If the fact that they can refuse to accept TUPE drivers, they no longer have to assume that they will have to take the expensive London General drivers, and can tender assuming that they can recruit new drivers at £8.00 an hour. The expensive London General drivers will be made redundant at minimum cost to the outgoing operator (Government minimum) and they will have no choice (if they want to stay driving) but to work at Abellio at the new £8.00 an hour. Abellio win loads of work, as they are willing to pay rock-bottom rates, London General lose work, therefore introduce new lower starter rates, and so the race to the bottom occurs. Who wins out of this? Abellio - Short term yes, but then everyone comes and joins them at the bottom London General - Short term no, but they then take on people at new low low rates TfL - laugh all the way to the bank, as the operators fight each other to cut tender costs in the knowledge that they don't have to take expensive drivers on Drivers - lose, lose and lose again [/color][/quote] That is the post of the year!!!!!!!
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Post by daveb0789 on Mar 29, 2013 19:05:51 GMT
Sorry I don't think drivers will lose out too badly. Tfl fought to reduce driver turnover (there was an official document on this) to increase pay (since 2002) and get better terms and conditions. With the drivers CPC Swadbus might be right; it will be take longer to train up new drivers making existing ones a valuable asset.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 29, 2013 20:15:07 GMT
Sorry I don't think drivers will lose out too badly. Tfl fought to reduce driver turnover (there was an official document on this) to increase pay (since 2002) and get better terms and conditions. With the drivers CPC Swadbus might be right; it will be take longer to train up new drivers making existing ones a valuable asset. The difference between then and now is politics unfortunately. The early years of TfL saw a lot of money and some of that was put into improving wages and conditions. Some of that was paid for via generous govt grants and higher council tax. The current Mayor has opted to cap the council tax, the government have trimmed TfL's budget and there is no money for expanding the bus network. Therefore the pressure has turned to contract costs and squeezing as much out of the operators as possible. This inevitably means some pressure on wages given they're the major component of operator costs. To some extent operators are also seeing margins and profits squashed because of reductions to BSOG and more taxing performance targets and reduced PVRs. Either way round someone pays - employees or taxpayers. There is no easy answer here - apart from getting the economy growing so there is less pressure on govt expenditure.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2013 13:43:11 GMT
When I drove buses back in the late 90s commuters would use the bus for relatively long journeys ie Tottenham Court Road to Hampstead Heath or Norwood Bus Garage to Hoborn or even Greenwich to the Elephant and Castle. But with increased traffic levels leading to increased journey times I wonder if commuters are switching to tubes and trains for those longer journeys ? Don't you find commuters a bit miserable? I know somebody who currently commutes from Croydon to Holborn on the X68. Don't most bus passengers look miserable?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2013 14:47:36 GMT
Arriva have a recruitment day at Edmonton next Saturday and are advertising £430 to £475 for a 5 day week excluding overtime which doesn't sound bad?
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Post by Swadbus on Mar 30, 2013 15:14:50 GMT
Arriva have a recruitment day at Edmonton next Saturday and are advertising £430 to £475 for a 5 day week excluding overtime which doesn't sound bad? Gross pay of course! So on a week of spreads, maybe a 50-55+ hour week, minus tax, national insurance, pension, union subs. Maybe £300-£320 ish take home. Not great.
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Post by daveb0789 on Mar 30, 2013 19:02:13 GMT
Arriva have a recruitment day at Edmonton next Saturday and are advertising £430 to £475 for a 5 day week excluding overtime which doesn't sound bad? Well I think the tourists are happier than commuters or those going out shopping. Weekend passengers seem very different to weekdays. Recruitment day? Is that where you get an assessment drive? I might go along to see how things are.
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Post by Steve80 on Mar 31, 2013 3:14:35 GMT
Arriva have a recruitment day at Edmonton next Saturday and are advertising £430 to £475 for a 5 day week excluding overtime which doesn't sound bad? Gross pay of course! So on a week of spreads, maybe a 50-55+ hour week, minus tax, national insurance, pension, union subs. Maybe £300-£320 ish take home. Not great. On one of my pay slips, I earned £534 gross pay after doing only 40 hours in one week. I got total deductions of £155 (Tax = £75, National Insurance = £46, other deductions = £34) and my take home pay was only £378
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Post by daveb0789 on Mar 31, 2013 17:03:37 GMT
Without the other deductions that would be £400 a week after deductions which isn't bad. Works out to just over £13 an hour. But a London bus driver should be on £15 an hour. Gross pay on 40 hours works out at £27k.
A good promotion path might be revenue inspector as they get ~35k for 35 hours work.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2013 17:58:57 GMT
But why should they be on £15 per hour? I don't know any other driving jobs in London that pay anything like that.
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Post by daveb0789 on Mar 31, 2013 18:30:04 GMT
On the tube tfl pay its station staff more than £15 an hour. It's only fair bus drivers get at least that.
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