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Post by greeny253 on Jan 15, 2015 10:10:54 GMT
I'm guessing the previous drivers are just fed up with the wash loosening them and they report it but nothing gets done. And there lies the problem................... If EVERY driver refused to drive a bus with a loose mirror, the company would soon do something about it. Hit the nail on the head there. The problem is that while one driver will not take it, others will. I refused a bus for tyre cord on show on the drive axle one morning. Got a replacement, went off to Paddington then passed it on the way back...... Turned out the defect card had been thrown away and a fresh check carried out! Needless to say I got every possible person involved that I could on that one!
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Post by daveb0789 on Jan 15, 2015 11:35:21 GMT
I also started on London buses in 1996. It was my first proper job. I got £200 a week based on 40 hours (minibus rate). When I left London buses in 2002 the rate of pay for me was £7.80 plus unsocial hours but I regularly worked rest days and my gross was 28k. That dropped by half when I joined Stagecoach outside of London.
I think we need to abolish these tiered rates of pay. There should be one for non pcv licence holders and a 35k minimum rate for experienced drivers. Then work on those T+Cs.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Jan 15, 2015 13:31:33 GMT
Again Ryan, I'm afraid you understand things in simplistic terms. There are clerks working in accident prevention departments, but they support all parts of the department. To state that their job is SOLELY to look through CCTV is incorrect. If a driver is disciplined/ sacked due to CCTV unrelated to an accident/ complaint etc. it is against data prevention and any rep worth their role will successfully defend that. Again, if blameless accidents are brought into disciplines and used against a driver, the rep is very weak. If they are blameless this should not happen. But if true, whose opinion are you listening to judging blameless - I suspect the driver involved. You're getting a one sided version of the story. But your comments seem to radiate from canteen talk - so many stories like these go around and they tend to be exaggerated on one side. If the things you say are correct, you and your colleagues need to sort out a new rep asap! it's not stories or canteen stories because I never use the canteen, at LI we had a CCTV analyst I don,t know if he was doing different job as well but that was his title and another member mentioned that when they check an incident they check the whole days duty so its not just me saying so don't tell me its not true, You are definitely right about things like that happening at [LI]. I am not sure if its still the same since it has gone Tower Transit and they got rid of many different management/office roles as they were way over staffed - hence why they made their worth picking on drivers for silly things when [LI] was First London.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Jan 15, 2015 13:36:42 GMT
it's not stories or canteen stories because I never use the canteen, at LI we had a CCTV analyst I don,t know if he was doing different job as well but that was his title and another member mentioned that when they check an incident they check the whole days duty so its not just me saying so don't tell me its not true, Having seen on more than one occasion what comes back from CCTV I can assure you that the analyst will not be looking at a whole days duty. They simply wouldn't have the time. All the CCTV a analyst is interested in is what happened between X and Y in relation to a reported incident. For example, if a bus is involved in a collision at 10:05, the analyst will look at everything between 10:02 and 10:08 at best to allow for the small differences in clock settings but that's about it. Before I left the buses last year, I was involved in a collision caused by the other driver not looking and just pulling into my path. The CCTV a had maybe 5 minutes of useable footage but it showed that there was little I could do to avoid it given the space I didn't have. Finally, if you're union rep is that bad it's time you called a vote of no confidence and got a new one. All I ever heard from West Ham drivers was how uselss they thought their union rep was but they never did anything about it. If it is [LI] then there is no hope. Everytime, there is always a change when it comes around elections, new person gets in, active for one month then sold out to management. Hence why so many drivers there have come out of the union, or gone to others like RMT or Bus Workers Union. That is also why when recent Tower Transit strike went on, many drivers went out and then the all London bus strike, they still run almost half or more of the buses; compared to other garages which had a handful or none.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2015 22:28:49 GMT
Bullying and harassment laws are far more enforced these days than before, your union should be able to represent you if you are being bullied by a manager or a controller. I wish that was the case but it isn't. I was surprised at how archaic the way industrial relations attitudes are when I joined. Sure, a union rep can start a storm about an incident, said person will get moved on.. But will anything ever change? No. Someone worse will end up getting the gig! I agree with the strikes, but pay is only one minor itch that needs scratching. In my opinion, the conditions, lack of facilities and treatment from managers needs addressing big time. Ex-LT people are always telling me that it was an entitlement you could get a hot meal on a shift for example (even on nights). Why is it that conditions have taken such retrograde steps? Lu/TfL staff still have on site subsidised canteens. I guess all garages are different, some are better, but that's just the problem.
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Post by vjaska on Jan 16, 2015 22:58:09 GMT
All I'm going to say is Bus Drivers have it better than me and my work colleagues - retail has even worse pay and conditions That said, I didn't mind them striking as unlike some other sections of transport, bus drivers are not greedy people and do not continually hold passengers to ransom.
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Post by sw11simon on Jan 17, 2015 8:25:23 GMT
Bullying and harassment laws are far more enforced these days than before, your union should be able to represent you if you are being bullied by a manager or a controller. I wish that was the case but it isn't. I was surprised at how archaic the way industrial relations attitudes are when I joined. Sure, a union rep can start a storm about an incident, said person will get moved on.. But will anything ever change? No. Someone worse will end up getting the gig! I agree with the strikes, but pay is only one minor itch that needs scratching. In my opinion, the conditions, lack of facilities and treatment from managers needs addressing big time. Ex-LT people are always telling me that it was an entitlement you could get a hot meal on a shift for example (even on nights). Why is it that conditions have taken such retrograde steps? Lu/TfL staff still have on site subsidised canteens. I guess all garages are different, some are better, but that's just the problem. LU only have legacy canteens now - anywhere new opening does not have one. I work at Northfields depot and we don't have one. That's exactly the same strategy as Go-Ahead London and the prices are similar too (at least they were two and a half years ago). Tube drivers do have better T&C's though - maximum day is 8 hours, no spreadovers, much better pay, more effort to match staff to shift preferences (although I think some bus companies do this more than others). If management are bullying and the union is doing nothing, the union is weak - protecting its members against that is part of what you pay your subs for.
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