Dublin Bus tables conditional pay offer of 12%

It wasn't a demonstration it was to hand in a letter on behalf of drivers to the minister for transport!!

It was a complete rejection, 97.6% against, spare drivers just as disgusted as marked in drivers by the proposals, the new work shifts the NTA want are shocking, no other job in the land would even consider these shifts, never mind a safety critical job.

Not hyperbole to say the proposals would put drivers in an early grave, working crazy hours.

Here is the run down on whats happened

Its a NTA deal 100%

DB management doing the bidding of NTA

DB is a semi-state, this is the key

A semi-state will not go to the wall

Option 1, closed it down, big redundancy payment to staff, this option will never happen, Dublin needs a bus service.

So option 2 is it is sold of to private sector, and we know from previous sales that the staff will get shares in the new company

Who would want to take over DB when the driver would have a vote at the AGM?

So we are back to option 1, and this wont happen we all know this.

So most likely outcome is that the tender is awarded to someone else and the DB sign outside the Depot is removed and replaced with another companies one, only thing that changes is the DB managers are out of a job and replaced by different ones, drivers still in the same job with different managers.

The deal offered is so bad it was totally rejected by drivers, any new operator will know this, they would have to be idiotic to push through the same deal knowing it would lead to a strike on day 1 of their operation. So the deal would have to be better than that currently offered.

Now you know what is going on, you can see the drivers have the whip hand, DB management and NTA in a bind.

As for why unions where for this deal, keep a eye out for new faces at the NTA , you might see a few names you recognise from the unions now working there

hardly slanderous in fairness.

untrue perhapse but slanderous is a bit hyperbole in fairness.

The route identity thing is crazy. All drivers came into the job spare and worked every route in the garages. if overtime is on offer then 97% of drivers will know any route in the garage. marking in and knowing your roster will still exist.

I've read about all staff having to do Split shifts because of the deal but reading the document and talking to some drivers I know still working for DB say that's not true and they've only been given sample rosters so nobody knows what the "New" shifts will be as they haven't been drafted.

One thing is certain, DB management have done an awful job communicating with their staff.

Someone thinks if DB lose routes to another company and drivers are TUPE to the organization that management will be left unemployed or out of pocket ? you're kidding yourself there.

Perhaps a staff buy out of DB would an option? see n it in the UK multiple times and very successful too.

The Luas "third operator" is the same operator with two/three name changes. Same entity has won the tenders each time.

Connex -> Veoila -> Veoila Transdev -> Transdev.

there is no delusion of the DB drivers.

they won't be responsible for the death of dublin bus if that was to happen, nor would they be responsible for dublin bus not winning tenders for which there is absolutely no valid reason for them not to win given they are and always will be competitive being a non-profit state operator.

There would be very few letters of comfort floating around these days. Apart from that plenty of drivers, inspectors, maintenance and managers can be tuped to new operator.

Are drivers opposed to having to drive all routes and using the new shift/hours to exasperate the situation ? What I mean is, if they divide the bogey rosters and shift duties meaning that only those that opt for bogeys, and there are plenty of them who volunteered for them now, would that fix one problem? or will route identity still be an issue ?

Will they still have work outs? Aren't they a breach of the work time act also? 6 hours no break?

Drivers in other countries somehow manage to do such (and even longer) hours, but Irish drivers seem to be too lazy and wanting to get the gold pay for just steering the wheel all day.

Drivers should ignore the unpaid break hours but focus to their total weekly/monthly wage. Which is good enough.

If they don't like the job, why don't they find somewhere else to work? I hope Dublin Bus will loose a good fair of routes during Tendering and the DB drivers will realise that they should put the effort in work, not in whining.

because drivers in other countries may be willing to put up with certain conditions does not mean irish drivers should, ultimately it is the irish drivers who are correct and the ones in other countries either need to join a union or get themselves a better union to represent them.

drivers in db do the job they are paid to do, and after that have no other obligations, as it should be.

you hoping the company loses routes for no good reason presumably because you are bitter at the drivers being able to stand up for themselves says more about you then it ever could or would about db or it's staff.

and in some good news, even if db do lose routes, the drivers at the new operator won't put up with any old thing either, so people with your ideals thankfully lose either way and workers rights continue to win.

It not unusual to have a 12 hour shift for public transport drivers in Europe. But I'd support the 4 work days week, meaning a 12 hours shift but 3 days off per week. Currently offered 12 hrs and 5 days a week sounds a bit stretched.

I have worked a 14 hours shift with only 10 mins break every 90 mins. No lunch or any other longer than 10 mins break was scheduled so we just made that ourselves by going ahead the timetable, especially in the end of the route where there aren't passengers waiting. That was possible as it wasn't purely city routes, more like local short intercity.

Worked for a few years and survived. I until this moment know people who still does these shifts 5 days a week! That's a 60 hours of work per week (excluding these breaks), or 70 hours a week with breaks. Again, that's in Europe (Eastern).

When Irish bus drivers are crying for a work life balance, higher wages, shorter hours, exceptional privileges to choose routes... All of it makes me laugh. These kind of needy drivers back there used to be put down very quickly by cutting the wages or asking a few guys to explain it with physical actions.