Bus Strike (read warning in post #1)

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 7:20pm

devnull wrote: »

So you are saying that you aren't paid much more than €800 a month? Come on, we both know that the average yearly take home amount in cash for Dublin Bus drivers is a few times more than €10,000 a year.

Lets see where do I start...

Tax tax tax tax is all I see coming out of my wages.
USC
PRSI which gets me nothing.
I have to maintain a car to get to work fuel, tax, tyres, NCT, Insurance, licence, maintenance, other costs, depreciation etc etc.
Need to sort lunch, dinner etc.

If I didn't work I wouldnt have to worry about a car, insuarance and tax really and so on.

I would get dole, rent allowance/benefit/supplement what ever it's called these days.

So on and so on etc etc.

Much more benefits in there.

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 7:23pm

devnull wrote: »

A definition of crap pay is very subjective, I don't think you will get anyone who says they are paid too much, even if they are.

I don't want anyone to get the minimum wage in the sectors or any of the transport company, but at the same time, the current salary bill in the CIE companies is higher than other businesses in the transport sector.

Start with the actuall high paid and would actually love if people stopped going after the lowest paid.

Would managers be in a job if there was no drivers?

Its a extremely difficult, tiring and stressful job and believe me it's not easy.

end of the road · 31-03-2015 7:32pm

devnull wrote: »

the current salary bill in the CIE companies is higher than other businesses in the transport sector.

some businesses pay higher wages then others in a particular sector. thats not the problem of other businesses, the same as other businesses wages aren't the problem of dublin bus for example.

devnull · 31-03-2015 7:32pm

punisher5112 wrote: »

Lets see where do I start...

Tax tax tax tax is all I see coming out of my wages.
USC
PRSI which gets me nothing.
I have to maintain a car to get to work fuel, tax, tyres, NCT, Insurance, licence, maintenance, other costs, depreciation etc etc.
Need to sort lunch, dinner etc.

And so? There are people who are far worse off than the vast majority of Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann workers who have a smaller income than the average industrial income per year, unlike CIE employees who earn on average a little more than that.

I have to pay all those things and from an ex driver I know, certainly the salaries in Dublin Bus are better than what I am paid, and I actually had to study in university for my degree and put a lot of hard work and effort in. I'm not saying that Bus driving is an easy job, but the pay certainly is very good.

I don't think the majority of people will be getting anything close to €800 a week in benefits. Maybe a small fraction can get that in theory, but it's highly unlikely and rare that every person will qualify for every possible allowance and as I said, the people who do have situations that often require it.

devnull · 31-03-2015 7:35pm

punisher5112 wrote: »

Start with the actuall high paid and would actually love if people stopped going after the lowest paid.

Thing is though, in my career, it has become pretty apparent that everyone who you ask about pay cuts, always says that it should start with the level above them, if you are asking the people one level from the top of the tree, in the middle of the tree, or at the bottom.

Would managers be in a job if there was no drivers?

Managers are there to manage, drivers are there to drive. Any company needs a mixture of both to work out, again drives seem to think they could run the company themselves, when simply they could not. In my office if there was no authority or management, the place would quickly turn into meltdown.

Just like the whole idea of kicking all the admin workers out of the HSE is flawed. The idea of getting rid of the bureaucracy and giving more money to be spent on doctors, but in the end the same work has to be done by the doctors, who are less qualified and familiar and less experienced with such tasks, taking them away from actually seeing patients which makes the service even more inefficent than it was before they addressed the issue.

Its a extremely difficult, tiring and stressful job and believe me it's not easy.

Never said it was easy or not tiring or stressful, but many jobs are like that. you are not alone in that regard.

monument · 31-03-2015 7:37pm

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stehyl15 · 31-03-2015 7:37pm

Sack them all i say go to pakistan and get cheap labour

devnull · 31-03-2015 7:39pm

end of the road wrote: »

some businesses pay higher wages then others in a particular sector. thats not the problem of other businesses, the same as other businesses wages aren't the problem of dublin bus for example.

Dublin Bus is not a commercial business.

It is a public company run for the public.

The unions spent years telling us that, but seem to have abandoned that line recently when they realise it doesn't suit their current agenda.

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 7:42pm

stehyl15 wrote: »

Sack them all i say go to pakistan and get cheap labour

Good plan even better just scrap public transport altogether.

Icepick · 31-03-2015 7:42pm

punisher5112 wrote: »

If they were to lower our wages I would be better off not working.

So instead we should be overpaying? Better to reform the welfare system.

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 7:45pm

Icepick wrote: »

So instead we should be overpaying? Better to reform the welfare system.

Where did I say we are overpaid.

Overpaid no way underpaid for what we have to put up with yes.

stehyl15 · 31-03-2015 7:47pm

I love how dublin bus and irish rail use the word customers i find the word users more adequete

stehyl15 · 31-03-2015 7:50pm

punisher5112 wrote: »

Good plan even better just scrap public transport altogether.

But we could give them 50 cent an hour and theyd probably be happy one less cost for db mangement

stehyl15 · 31-03-2015 7:55pm

Why are they getting so much money in the first i wouldnt call driving a bus a skilled job

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 8:16pm

stehyl15 wrote: »

Why are they getting so much money in the first i wouldnt call driving a bus a skilled job

You have to have the force.

Have you.

Icepick · 31-03-2015 8:41pm

mickydoomsux wrote: »

So everyone working in either state or semi-state companies should accept crap pay and conditions to provide a certain ideal level of service?

Good luck getting anyone but the most desperate to do those jobs so. I can't wait to see nurses, doctors, gardai, etc along with public transport workers on minimum wage so that the end user of the service can have white glove treatment.

Comparing drivers to doctors? ...

mickydoomsux · 31-03-2015 8:56pm

Icepick wrote: »

Comparing drivers to doctors? ...

Not really, just expanding on the other posters logic of paying public and semi state workers less because they are providing a public service and should be more interested in that than making a decent living

woodrow wyatt · 31-03-2015 9:00pm

devnull wrote: »

from an ex driver I know, certainly the salaries in Dublin Bus are better than what I am paid, and I actually had to study in university for my degree and put a lot of hard work and effort in. I'm not saying that Bus driving is an easy job, but the pay certainly is very good.

Dublin bus are hiring at the moment, whats stopping you and others from applying for the job?

woodrow wyatt · 31-03-2015 9:07pm

devnull wrote: »

Managers are there to manage, drivers are there to drive. Any company needs a mixture of both to work out, again drives seem to think they could run the company themselves, when simply they could not. In my office if there was no authority or management, the place would quickly turn into meltdown.

Department of Transport.
NTA.
CIE.
Dublin Bus.
Here we have 4 layers of management all doing the same job.
Blame the lowest level of worker in the company for its woes, thats seem to be your answer.
You cant have multiple people doing the same job of driving the one bus, but you blame them for the financial problems?

woodrow wyatt · 31-03-2015 9:08pm

stehyl15 wrote: »

Why are they getting so much money in the first i wouldnt call driving a bus a skilled job

What do they get paid?
I read here about huge gold plated wages and pensions but never see and figures.

triple nipple · 31-03-2015 9:16pm

clunked wrote:

Listening to RTE 1 radio this morning, a representative from the private operators more or less admitted that it would result in lower wages for drivers. As the NTA tender documents seemed to suggest that a tendering company needed to have a turnover over â‚¬40 million per anum, you would have only multinational companies or CIE group companies.

cant see a problem with that. DB drivers earn very high wages for the work they do.

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 9:17pm

Its a sad world we live in where people think because one is a driver that they must be slow/dim/un-educated.

I am treated like dirt on the bottom of some peoples shoes by the way not all but i does happen.

If there was work out there I would be moving on but I was lucky to get the job before things really went sour.

If I had stayed where I was I would be out of work the last god knows how many years but I worked hard to get where I am and am in no way going to be put down in any way.

I am all for change but the company and the whole country is been run like sh1t and all the government and media do is turn it all around and get others chasing others that really are not the problem.

Some n eed to go and read up and educate themselves before they start commenting on things they don't seem to understand much about at all.

punisher5112 · 31-03-2015 9:20pm

triple nipple wrote: »

cant see a problem with that. DB drivers earn very high wages for the work they do.

What about looking this way lets say a private operator takes over.

The company owner, director, managers will be well paid to the point of disgustingly overpaid but thats ok because the driver gets butter vouchers sure they will be grand.

LXFlyer · 31-03-2015 9:29pm

I wonder am I alone in finding many of the comments in this thread really daft and frankly insulting to different categories of employees.

For a start I'm not sure that going down the route of making claims and counter claims about people's wages or indeed speculating as to what different employees' earnings is particularly appropriate - that's an issue for the company and their employees.

Nor for that matter do I think making derogatory comments about different categories of employees particularly edifying - every company needs senior managers, middle managers, and general staff to get the company to work.

Each of the categories will have different workloads, and different expectations and inevitably they are going to be paid different amounts according to their role within the organisation, responsibilities, qualifications, and their workload.

The general suggestion that operational staff suffer more stress than office staff is one I hear regularly and it really gets my goat - how can people know what stress levels different people suffer at work? There can be numerous different ways that people at all levels can suffer stress and suggestions that one category of staff suffers more is just daft.

There are a completely different range of issues here which don't appear to have been resolved:

- People are on permanent contracts and the fundamental issue is what protection TUPE will offer to them if they have to transfer to another employer, and how long that will remain?

- If they don't want to transfer - will there still be work for them at DB or BE and if not, what redundancy arrangements will be on offer, and who will fund that?

I think people ought to be reasonably sensible in their comments here - people who work in either company will be understandably concerned about their future employment and making off the cuff derogatory comments really is not helpful.

One would like to think that everyone involved in these talks can come together and have heads bashed together to resolve these sort of issues, as they are kind of basic and shouldn't be being discussed at the 11th hour.

n97 mini · 31-03-2015 9:34pm

Oh dear, this thread has gone decidedly downhill since I last checked.

There is one thing that is for sure: no ONE company, public or private, can provide the best, most efficient service all the time and for ever. CHANGE is constantly required to achieve the best.

n97 mini · 31-03-2015 9:37pm

punisher5112 wrote: »

The company owner, director, managers will be well paid to the point of disgustingly overpaid but thats ok because the driver gets butter vouchers sure they will be grand.

I reckon that's the kind of comment lx is talking about. God help us but there's probably some poor eejit who will believe you. It's not 1913 any more you know.

Icepick · 31-03-2015 9:42pm

n97 mini wrote: »

There is one thing that is for sure: no ONE company, public or private, can provide the best, most efficient service all the time and for ever. CHANGE is constantly required to achieve the best.

Competition to be precise.
That's what (state owned) monopolies preclude by nature.

LXFlyer · 31-03-2015 9:45pm

n97 mini wrote: »

I reckon that's the kind of comment lx is talking about. God help us but there's probably some poor eejit who will believe you. It's not 1913 any more you know.

I think people seem to forget that, for example most MDs are on fixed term contracts - in other words they don't have long term security of employment and when the contract finishes may not have a job for some time.

Also most MDs are on call 24/7, which most staff most certainly are not, and they have to make decisions that affect everyone in the organisation. So of course they are going to be paid a salary commensurate with that situation.

But at the same time that doesn't mean that bus drivers should be paid a pittance either - it can be a tough job, and derogatory comments as to the skills required etc. are frankly just insulting to those staff who are out there every day working unsocial hours.

But this is why I think this sort of arguing over different levels of pay here is frankly daft - different jobs within every organisation have different responsibilities, workloads, expectations, and are going to be paid different rates.

clunked · 31-03-2015 9:49pm

n97 mini wrote: »

I reckon that's the kind of comment lx is talking about. God help us but there's probably some poor eejit who will believe you. It's not 1913 any more you know.

No it's not 1913 but some of the posters here carry on like the descendants of those who broke the strikes over 100 years.

Lxflyer as usual speaks with knowledge and sense. Less of the gold plated nonsense might lead to a more reasoned discussion.

end of the road · 31-03-2015 9:51pm

Icepick wrote: »

Competition to be precise.
That's what (state owned) monopolies preclude by nature.

i don't see any "competition" thats worth bothering about here. if dublin bus and private were operating along the same route then that would be actual competition to shout about. the NTA seem to be deciding everything.

Bus Strike (read warning in post #1)

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