Driver sickness causes a dozen bus cancellations
Tuesday 15th January 2013, 1:00PM GMT.
BUS services were hit by more cancellations yesterday despite mass industrial action being avoided by CT Plus.
Driver sickness was once again blamed for around a dozen cancellations to routes throughout the day.
It followed crunch talks the night before between drivers and the bus operator that managed to avert planned industrial action – with a further meeting planned later this month.
CT Plus yesterday refused to respond to questions over its recent service problems.
On Sunday evening, some staff said they would be defying their union and plan work-to-rule action until a resolution was reached.
News that mass industrial action had been avoided was largely welcomed, although there was some concern over the ongoing cancellations.
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Gosh, that’s a coincidence isn’t it?
I trust they are all able to provide Doctor’s notes eh?
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how stupid do the union, CT Plus and the bus drivers really think that the general public are?
A dozen or more cancellations of services due to illness on the very day that strike action was avoided and then surprise surprise all the drivers are bright eyed and bushy tailed for work on Tuesday morning.
I wish the union/CT Plus and the drivers would have the backbone to call a spade a spade!
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Do you know which drivers called in sick to identify which the same ones that were bright eyed and bushy tailed on Tuesday morning? From what I read in the Press cancellations have been happening for the past week and not just the one day the strike was due to be called.
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Guernsey Girl, in the article above it states “On Sunday evening, some staff said they would be defying their union and plan work-to-rule action until a resolution was reached”.
And that is exactly what happened over Monday/Tuesday but was passed off as “Driver Sickness”.
If you can’t see what they are doing you want to take off your rose tinted glasses and have a look at what goes on in the real world!
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Work to rule is doing what it states in your contract and nothing extra. If the driver wasn’t due to be on shift that day and was asked to do overtime it is highly likely they refused.
I’m not saying either that maybe one of the drivers didn’t pull a sickie but no one has actually seemed to consider that some of them were actually honestly sick.
The reports are that those “sick” were mainly in the same shared accomodation. Have you ever had a child come home from school with a winter vomitting bug or some other lurgy for it only to be passed around the whole family within days?
So I will believe what I want to believe you go ahead and believe what you want!!
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Update: I’ve asked around and the drivers don’t get sick pay, feel free to check up on that yourself and if I’m am mis-informed I would love to know.
So these drivers would not if this is true been paid and possibly lost out on lets say £100+ each. Personally I’m not sick very often myself so I’m assuming they also wouldn’t have been able to claim on the social as they would need a valid doctors note for a sick pay claim.
I’m also assuming like everyone else that these drivers all have rent / mortgage, other household bills etc to pay so they would not have taken the loss of this money easily.
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“Sickness” That’s a classic union trick from the old days.
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The strike was going to be because Bus drivers do not have enough time to go and visit their families.
Why are they not training up local drivers to do these jobs and why don’t the states make them employ locals ????
These bus drivers choose to take a job over here then try and bring the island to a stand still when they don’t get enough holiday, somethings seriously wrong with this.
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“Why are they not training up local drivers to do these jobs and why don’t the states make them employ locals ????”….. seriously??
1)Where are all these drivers just waiting to be trained up?
2) How could the States of Guernsey possibly dictate to any company what staff they employ?
Get real and miss out the ‘not’ from your nom de plume in future.
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1. what makes you think these are foreign bus drivers? Do you have any real facts?
2. there must be a reason why locals don’t want these sort of jobs. I represent industry where locals apply for a job very rarely or just simply are not ready to work full 40h per week.
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Martins
Is english Foreign in Guernsey? I think thats whats coming across some comments.
If I was considering applying to be a bus driver I would be asking for a 40hr week Monday to Friday.No weekend work unless paid the going overtime rate for working above my normal weekly hours.
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So you would “work to rule” which is what some of the public are so upset about that some of the drivers dare still do this and not work all hours god sends to provide them with the service they want
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From what I have heard the long weekends aren’t necessarily holidays but part of the shift rotation where maybe if a driver works four or five days straight every four to six weeks they got say three days off in a row. In this long weekend they would have time to go home and see their families as a lot of the drivers don’t only work Monday-Friday and get the weekends off to go home. These long weekends were going to be changed to be less frequent which is why they were upset.
If I am wrong and it was holiday time owed then please feel free to correct me but seeing as though on average most of us get a two day weekend plus 20-30 days holiday a year, isn’t it only fair the drivers are allowed to use their holiday time to go home and see their family (if they aren’t local) ?
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Surely there is a service level agreement between the States and CT Plus. That should include some penalty for cancelled services at the very least. I do think that CT Plus is not quite as altruistic as was painted before they were awarded the contract. They do seem to be squeezing the staff (UK & local alike) very hard.
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Finally someone who may at least recognise the bus drivers are working hard to run the service. There have been reports in the Press of some drivers working over 12 hours a day but many of the comments on these forums are instead focused on those drivers that have taken sick leave in the last week.
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How many locals do you know that want a job as a bus driver?
If you know any I suggest you tell them to talk to CT Plus as I am sure they would be delighted to hear from them
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We as a goverment keep skirting around the bus issue.
The truth is that the States got it wrong when they purchased the present fleet of buses. As always, they find it very hard to admit they got it wrong, which is why they have been reluctant to put it right. We paid millions for a fleet of buses that were totaly unsuitable for the island.
And because these buses were clearly to big for Guernsey they were never going to go anywhere other than the main routes and many of the small lanes around the island in the more densely populated arrears of the island remain virtually un-serviced by a public transport system. Which is pretty useless as a public service?
What is needed is to get rid of most of the large buses, just keep a few for the school run. Replace the rest with 15 seater mini buses that can go anywhere on the island. Have a regular free bus service and put more on in peak periods. If we remove the million pounds subsidy we give to the airlines we could run a decent free bus service.
Also you might attract a lot more local bus drivers who would be much happier with driving a smaller vehicle, you could also have lots of part timers who have retired and just want a few hours a week, after all we have lot of healthy older people who would like a part time job, some of them will have driven larger vehicles all their working lives.
We need to move the bus station to the North Beach car park by the toilets and turn the old bus station over to parking at that end of town.
That is what I would do if I was given the job to sort this out.
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Dave , given that you are obviously right about all this (and I am sure as a dedicated States’ member your carefully read the 2006 traffic strategy http://www.gov.gg/article/5509/2006-March-29th-Billet-VII that outlined the criteria needed to be met in our bus fleet) can you please enlighten the Guernsey public as to …
What smaller buses were available that were as easily accessible as the current fleet, and as easily maneuverable in our small lanes
How much it would have cost to buy a fleet of said vehicles that could cope with peak capacity
Where you would have put all these vehicles
Where you would have found all the drivers needed to drive them
And how you would have funded all the above.
Hopefully some of your answers will still apply and can help inform the ongoing review of transport strategy.
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Just curious, what do you define as “peak capacity”?
Outside of the school service, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bus full to capacity.
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Toby
The answer to your first question is that mini buses have been available for years, Ford for instance have made a transit version of them for over 30 years, the more modern versions have provision for wheel chairs. Theses mini buses will go anywhere the average delivery van goes now, which is the vast majority of lanes on the island.
As for the cost of them, my guess would be that you could purchase 3 minibuses for the price of one of the large modern buses we have at present. In fact it would probably be cheaper to lease them.
They would be kept in the yard the current bus fleet is using now. I believe the drivers could be found locally, many might be part time drivers coming out of early retirement looking for something to do. I really don’t believe that finding enough drivers for this size vehicle would be a real problem.
The same way as we fund it now and as I said in my previous post if we need extra funding we should look at the subsidy that C&E give the airlines which according to the 2011 accounts was just over £700,000.
I have already made some of these points in a written submission to the Environment department in July 2011.
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