All our drivers are happy. We've had a pay rise. A substantial pay rise. It is an inflation busting 7.69230769230% increase, taking our hourly rate to a staggering 20% over the minimum wage. This of course will come down to 18% when the minimum wage goes up in October.
Yes, dear friends, bus drivers are the lowest of the low when it comes to the topic of salaries. A Polish friend of mine, I found was on a better wage putting plastic lids on plastic containers in a plastics factory.
But who's complaining. A blog about working in a plastics factory would run out of ideas fairly quickly. And I am the lucky one. The company I work for is a decent company with fair and kind employers.
The more horror tales I here from drivers show what a complete shower of individuals there now are in the bus and coach industry. The larger companies now have their drivers in an Orwellian grip. There are so many cameras on their bus that they cannot pick their nose without it being uploaded onto a masterframe computer and recorded on their record as a black mark for evermore. The smart cards which they swipe at the start of their shift also dish out black marks for excessive breaking, excessive acceleration, exceeding the speed limit, leaving the engine idling etc etc. No fun. No wonder they are struggling to find drivers, though the credit crunch should help.
Some of the smaller companies are even worse. Some pay a meagre hourly rate. Some only pay the hours you drive. You could only drive two hours and wait around for ten. Some pay a percentage of the private hire fee, meaning if it was a ten hour day and the fee was only £120........well you do the maths. Some don't pay their drivers for months.
I am the lucky one.
No comments:
Post a Comment