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Post by John tuthill on Jul 15, 2015 13:58:41 GMT
I think bus drivers should be paid closer to tube drivers. An interesting point, but bus drivers do not have one London wide employer as do UG drivers, so how do you sort that out? I'd be very interested to know who suffers the most stress during their shift. I've just had a monitor on me for 24 hours, everything was OK, but how can you equate the two types of drivers? A bus driver would say UG drivers don't have jaywalkers, other nut job drivers or verbal abuse, and all they have to do is 'push a couple of buttons', where as your UG driver can offer an equal argument for the stress they are working under. I'd be interested to know what the pay differential was between the two when it was just 'London Transport'
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Post by vjaska on Jul 15, 2015 14:22:36 GMT
I think bus drivers should be paid closer to tube drivers. I agree but not in the way you'd like.
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Post by rambo on Jul 15, 2015 19:41:18 GMT
I think bus drivers should be paid closer to tube drivers. If the tube was privatetized, it would!
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Post by snoggle on Jul 15, 2015 21:26:55 GMT
I think bus drivers should be paid closer to tube drivers. If the tube was privatetized, it would! Dream on. Any private tube operator would be completely terrified on industrial action just like so many TOCs are. Loss of revenue would immediately hit the firm's cash flow so it would do almost anything to avoid industrial action. The political pressure on a private tube co would also be immense in the event of a strike or similar. The same applies to the TOCs - not only do they lose revenue but are penalised through their franchise contracts. It's pretty rare for a TOC to suffer serious industrial action - only SWT has really "fought" the unions and could only do that by bussing in hundreds of spare Stagecoach vehicles to provide some sort of service. TOC and FOC drivers earn very good money because there's a limited supply of drivers, training costs are huge and the only real asset those companies have are their workforces. They don't own anything else - it's all leased or contracted in.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 19:52:46 GMT
Being a driver on the Victoria Line must be akin to going down the mines every day given they only see daylight at start and end of shift. Totally different to being on the Metropolitan Line , I wonder whether the pay differs ? That said, driving the 331 is totally different to driving the 18 , and I wonder whether the pay differs here as well ? The London public are mostly unsympathetic toward anyone who gets in their way be it strikes or walking across their daily ritual path across Victoria station concourse so public opinion doesn't really matter to the drivers I'm sure. I don't think I'd relish driving a train full of drunks in a tunnel on my own.
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Post by snoggle on Jul 16, 2015 20:11:21 GMT
Being a driver on the Victoria Line must be akin to going down the mines every day given they only see daylight at start and end of shift. Totally different to being on the Metropolitan Line , I wonder whether the pay differs ? That said, driving the 331 is totally different to driving the 18 , and I wonder whether the pay differs here as well ? The London public are mostly unsympathetic toward anyone who gets in their way be it strikes or walking across their daily ritual path across Victoria station concourse so public opinion doesn't really matter to the drivers I'm sure. I don't think I'd relish driving a train full of drunks in a tunnel on my own. I think the public's view is rather more nuanced than you might imagine. The media view is nearly always unbalanced and wrong. No one likes the inconvenience but there has often been sympathy for the strikers' position. Clearly at the moment we have a rather opportunistic government going hell for leather to make changes while it can. It'll happily whip up a frenzy of apparent hate for the tube workers if it suits its wider purpose in killing trade unions and restricting Labour Party funding. Still it's the same bunch who are happy to cut the real wages of nurses, deprive people of justice, cause lawyers to go on strike and will soon have consultant doctors on the picket lines. And for my resident critics yes that was a political statement - feel free to report me. I don't know what the current position is but in years past the Vic Line drivers were the most senior drivers and earned an enhanced rate for working on an ATO line. I suspect that might have changed with the spread of more automatic train working across the tube network.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 21:57:31 GMT
Being a driver on the Victoria Line must be akin to going down the mines every day given they only see daylight at start and end of shift. Totally different to being on the Metropolitan Line , I wonder whether the pay differs ? That said, driving the 331 is totally different to driving the 18 , and I wonder whether the pay differs here as well ? The London public are mostly unsympathetic toward anyone who gets in their way be it strikes or walking across their daily ritual path across Victoria station concourse so public opinion doesn't really matter to the drivers I'm sure. I don't think I'd relish driving a train full of drunks in a tunnel on my own. I think the public's view is rather more nuanced than you might imagine. The media view is nearly always unbalanced and wrong. No one likes the inconvenience but there has often been sympathy for the strikers' position. Clearly at the moment we have a rather opportunistic government going hell for leather to make changes while it can. It'll happily whip up a frenzy of apparent hate for the tube workers if it suits its wider purpose in killing trade unions and restricting Labour Party funding. Still it's the same bunch who are happy to cut the real wages of nurses, deprive people of justice, cause lawyers to go on strike and will soon have consultant doctors on the picket lines. And for my resident critics yes that was a political statement - feel free to report me. I don't know what the current position is but in years past the Vic Line drivers were the most senior drivers and earned an enhanced rate for working on an ATO line. I suspect that might have changed with the spread of more automatic train working across the tube network For what its worth, your political statement is bang on
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Post by daveb0789 on Jul 21, 2015 18:02:10 GMT
I think bus drivers should be paid closer to tube drivers. I agree but not in the way you'd like. What is the way you would like ? In Paris I understand metro and bus drivers start on the same salary. I think it's important not to get on the 'I don't earn anywhere near as much as you and I think your job is a piece of pi** therefore I'm jealous' bandwagon. I definitely think a bus driver has higher stress levels than say a tube driver on the Victoria line. Bus driving is the harder job but unfortunately requires less training. How about this for a comparison. Should an transatlantic airline pilot be paid the same as a bus driver just because they spend the majority of their flight on automatic pilot?
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Post by vjaska on Jul 21, 2015 18:58:05 GMT
I agree but not in the way you'd like. What is the way you would like ? In Paris I understand metro and bus drivers start on the same salary. I think it's important not to get on the 'I don't earn anywhere near as much as you and I think your job is a piece of pi** therefore I'm jealous' bandwagon. I definitely think a bus driver has higher stress levels than say a tube driver on the Victoria line. Bus driving is the harder job but unfortunately requires less training. How about this for a comparison. Should an transatlantic airline pilot be paid the same as a bus driver just because they spend the majority of their flight on automatic pilot? I'd level out both bus driver pay & tube driver pay by decreasing tube driver pay and bumping up bus driver so they become identical.
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Post by John tuthill on Jul 21, 2015 19:20:25 GMT
What is the way you would like ? In Paris I understand metro and bus drivers start on the same salary. I think it's important not to get on the 'I don't earn anywhere near as much as you and I think your job is a piece of pi** therefore I'm jealous' bandwagon. I definitely think a bus driver has higher stress levels than say a tube driver on the Victoria line. Bus driving is the harder job but unfortunately requires less training. How about this for a comparison. Should an transatlantic airline pilot be paid the same as a bus driver just because they spend the majority of their flight on automatic pilot? I'd level out both bus driver pay & tube driver pay by decreasing tube driver pay and bumping up bus driver so they become identical. And the RMT would send you a horses head!
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Post by northken on Jul 21, 2015 20:04:37 GMT
What has to be understood is that being a Tube driver is a promotional job. Very few start out in the industry to train straight away. Most have worked on stations for some years and experienced the worst types of people. Their dream is to be 'promoted' (transferred) to the driving side of the business - an incentive to endure all the rubbish if you will. Their pay is often so high due to the private TOCs creating competition for their skills, for which they are willing to shell out for. LUL management can be a pain to work with at times, and this strike(s) is actually over changes to the drivers' working hours without them being consulted first, not really over pay.
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Post by vjaska on Jul 21, 2015 21:02:08 GMT
I'd level out both bus driver pay & tube driver pay by decreasing tube driver pay and bumping up bus driver so they become identical. And the RMT would send you a horses head! That's dinner sorted then lol.
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Post by paulsw2 on Jul 22, 2015 2:46:06 GMT
I'd level out both bus driver pay & tube driver pay by decreasing tube driver pay and bumping up bus driver so they become identical. And the RMT would send you a horses head! A bus driver is responsible for 85-90 passengers at a time if the bus breaks down he just transfers passengers onto other vehicles then sits and puts feet up till engineers arrive , a tube driver (of which I am one) can be responsible for up to 1300 people on a crush loaded train and if it develops a fault can't phone for an engineer they HAVE to get that train moving asap we earn our money for our knowledge our levels of concentration and the ability to work under pressure. We also have to constantly be ready for the possibility of a one under or other operational incident. Bus drivers should be paid more but to say cut our wages is honestly a rather foolish statement.
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Post by vjaska on Jul 22, 2015 3:02:11 GMT
And the RMT would send you a horses head! A bus driver is responsible for 85-90 passengers at a time if the bus breaks down he just transfers passengers onto other vehicles then sits and puts feet up till engineers arrive , a tube driver (of which I am one) can be responsible for up to 1300 people on a crush loaded train and if it develops a fault can't phone for an engineer they HAVE to get that train moving asap we earn our money for our knowledge our levels of concentration and the ability to work under pressure. We also have to constantly be ready for the possibility of a one under or other operational incident. Bus drivers should be paid more but to say cut our wages is honestly a rather foolish statement. Not really, it's just my opinion - my view might change when the general public are no longer held to ransom. And a bus driver doesn't have as easy time as you describe as a bus driver actually has to deal with Joe Public and is more exposed whereas a tube driver stays in his cab 99% of the time.
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Post by ServerKing on Jul 22, 2015 5:44:02 GMT
A bus driver is responsible for 85-90 passengers at a time if the bus breaks down he just transfers passengers onto other vehicles then sits and puts feet up till engineers arrive , a tube driver (of which I am one) can be responsible for up to 1300 people on a crush loaded train and if it develops a fault can't phone for an engineer they HAVE to get that train moving asap we earn our money for our knowledge our levels of concentration and the ability to work under pressure. We also have to constantly be ready for the possibility of a one under or other operational incident. Bus drivers should be paid more but to say cut our wages is honestly a rather foolish statement. Not really, it's just my opinion - my view might change when the general public are no longer held to ransom. And a bus driver doesn't have as easy time as you describe as a bus driver actually has to deal with Joe Public and is more exposed whereas a tube driver stays in his cab 99% of the time. +1 In simplistic terms, Tube driver - stop and go, open and close doors / stop in tunnel, make announcement 'waiting for train ahead of us at Warren Street to clear the platform, we'll be on the move shortly' whereas a bus driver has to deal with a long shift pattern, unsociable hours (especially night bus services), facety passengers, and if in the West End those wretched pedicabs, cyclists, foreign truckers and coaches, breakdowns (and not just LT's lol ), and in some cases on a salary that is slightly better than admin work. I admire the work bus drivers do, and they are really helpful (the majority) - when my 5 year old left her school bag on a 267 last year, the guys at Fulwell were really helpful in retrieving it and told each driver on the route to look out for a red bag and passed it to me whilst I was at the garage waiting for said SLE to return... Had that been the Tube, it would have been a long trip to Lost Property at Baker Street, if the item wasn't gone forever But regardless of pay and job roles, the public cannot be held to ransom over issues in other industries would lead to the sack if you didn't like the T&C's. Try telling your manager you're going on strike because you don't like your uniform / the till you're fixing / the on-call rota and see how long you last We're not as bad as the French where they would burn tyres and make life a complete misery but the chaos on the roads thanks to the strikes was too much. Hopefully new legislation will make these strikes more difficult to start in future.
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