As I write this there are currently less than 47 hours until the Bee Bus Network finally launches on Sunday.
There’s varying reports around states of readiness from both camps – GNW and Diamond. GNW seemingly have their house in sightly more order than Diamond. Imminent Diamond drivers reporting lack of uniform, lack of employee number, no idea which depot to go to, and no idea of roster. Hopefully all sorted out since I last scrolled the Facebook comments section. It is a massive undertaking; one I had hoped to be assisting in.
Meanwhile the T1 incumbent Vision has had a bad 2 weeks maintaining the last throws of service. Reports of drivers unwilling to join Diamond – via TUPE – and jumping ship early to join GNW via their lengthy induction and training process. Joining the new Elites at their new haunt are bus-loads of agency staff on wages of £21 umbrella, plus bonus and free luxury accommodation.
And so starts the magical roundabout of contracts, pay disparity and TUPE processes. To aid me make my point as, ironically, words aren’t my particular strong-suit I’ll make an example.
Driver A works at Company A. Company A loses their SLSC to Company B and takes their staff via TUPE. Company B would pay Driver A at Company A’s rates and conditions for a year, whilst colleagues already at Company B would be on their rates and pay (higher or lower). Would this lead to two drivers on the same route following each other at the same time being paid at significantly varying rates? Doesn’t sound very fair. Company A could be feeling mischievous at losing their contracts so decide to hike wages prior to TUPE, forcing Company B to pay over the odds and ‘hurt’ them further in the pocket. If Company B has a higher pay rate would that override Company A’s TUPEd contract? Perhaps an across the board standardised contract and pay scale would ‘reset’ things after years of historical union battles and agreements leading to pay disparity across Manchester.
Would TUPE also cover things such as rota choice, flexible/fixed working arrangements? If Driver A at an understanding Company A has a fixed working week due to child care and Company B don’t have ‘fixed working’ arrangements and refuse to accommodate for any reason, the driver then decides to leave Company B for another operator that would be more receptive to the needs of modern life would they then loose service length, holiday benefits tied in to it and other ‘perks’? I hope the transition from TUPE contracts to new employers contracts will be a little smoother than GNW’s first attempt leading to the longest continual bus strike in Unite’s history over the summer of 2021 (it even has it’s own Wikipedia page!). I guess we’ll begin to find out in a year.
To avoid the situation where drivers with decades-long service being obliterated by the Bee Network, could perhaps a ‘Bee driving licence’ type card system be considered?
It would maintain the driver’s service length as a ‘Manchester driver’, be linked to a training record of route & bus station knowledge and up to date customer service that transfers easily between franchises in a standard format. It could also be linked into door access systems to bus stations and depots, negating the need for easily forgotten shared pins varying across the estate (if a driver leaves, they lose access to depots, bus station canteens/rest areas making private places more secure). Perhaps also acting as a staff travel and ID pass.
I’ve tried to compile a list of publicly available rates of weekday pay for qualified service drivers across the depots/companies. If I’ve missed some out please let me know.
- GNW (uniquely pay sightly more on a Friday)
- Bolton £14.30
- Queens £14.79
- Wigan £14.00
- Diamond
- £14.30
- Schools at Eccles £13.50
- Arriva
- Wythenshawe £14.44
- Stagecoach
- £16 (from what I can find they seem to be settling all depots to this rate. £1200 sign on bonus)
- T1 Schools £15
- First
- Oldham £15.50
- Rosso
- Rochdale £12.75
- Vision
- T1 Schools “up to £15”
As you can see, the rate seems to vary wildly from £12.75 up to £15.50 in similar areas. The only way to resolve drivers ‘chasing the money’ would be to flatten the rate out across the entire network. Some drivers stay for the ‘small community’ feel of some operators with slim rosters and some just want to bash out the hours and overtime so chase the money at a big depot with more work available. Every driver is different.
Lastly, I’ve heard chatter of the Bee Network customer service training looking to include modules on ‘how to be happy’. I look forward to having the autism trained out of me, I’m sure the NHS would love to know this miracle cure that TfGM have found. I can only try my best.
Just stop it
Yellow stickers seem to be finding their way onto flags across the area at a rate of knots. Oldham is the latest target, however there seems to be some slight omissions. Pairs of stops appear to have yellow Bee stickers applied to only one of the two flags. Yorkshire Street in Oldham is a place where it’s particularly noticeable where every 2nd stop is black TfGM. On some stops I observed in Failsworth and at Royal Oldham Hospital today, there also seems to be a plain white sticker placed over the locality names blanking them out – I wonder why. I know a slight recast of stop names is being considered, could this be the reason?
The Bee Network website (a re-skin of the existing TfGM one) and the app launched last week. Initially the app didn’t display any live bus information but was sorted a day or two later.
