Working in the transport industry

HydeRoad

There's a great new book out now, called RUINAIR by Paul Kilduff, available at all good bookstores for €0.01 (price excludes fees & charges of €12.98 - Full Price €12.99). It's a great, fun read, but also quite a hatchet job on a certain notorious Irish airline, with regard to customer service, staff conditions, etc. It certainly opened my eyes a bit more. I highly recommend it.

It brought to the fore a thought that's been on my mind for a while, to begin a thread on what it is like to work in the transport industry in Ireland, be it airlines, shipping, buses, trains, trams, without getting into taxis, which is done to death elsewhere! Alas, the transport industry is a hostage to rising fuel prices, exorbitant insurance costs, and being a labour intensive and cost heavy industry, is never going to be an easy business.

But is it really justifiable to treat staff so appallingly? Witness the scandal of the wages paid on Irish Ferries, the brutally long hours worked in low fares airlines, tram drivers falling asleep at the controls, bus drivers for a well known large private bus operator contracted to twelve hour shifts without a break, contrary to every tachograph law and working time directive in the EU?

The state bus operator in this country for a period had me arriving to work in my sub contracted bus for 7:30am, parking in the city centre, and waiting behind the wheel of my bus, with no breakfast, no lunch, not even a toilet break, for up to TEN hours, and then demanding I drive to Galway AND back, in service. What kind of risk does that put passengers under? Needless to say I left that job, but not before I had a blazing row with my employer.

I was born to drive buses, I love that job, but unfortunately a long succession of terrible working conditions under various employers drove me out of the job I love, and behind the wheel of a taxi, where I compete with 15,999 other taxi drivers for a pittance in earnings. At least I am my own boss.

I have many friends in the transport industry. Some are happy enough, or at least managing, but some of the stories I hear about punitive employers and their exploitation of staff, and deliberate maltreatment as a manner of policy, are like something you would read about in Dickens. Some of these are state appointed operators.

Surely the very basic tenet of a successful and thriving business is to treat your staff how you wish your customers to be treated? People should WANT to patronise you. You should not be a household name in bad service. And staff should WANT to work for you, such that you interview and select the most suitable, not turning over a huge number of trainee staff year after year, with all the wasted cost that entails.

Why are standards so low, why do the majority of people accept this, why does the state we pay our taxes to accept this, and what can be done to encourage a more positive way of selling and looking at the industry than simply bleeding what profit can be wrung from it, discarding the humanity of customer and staff alike along the way?

Ham'nd'egger

Talking to somebody recently, the daily rate for a coach driver to earn per day is €120. That isn't great, is it?

HydeRoad

And that'll be based on a 10-16 hour day, probably with a couple of hours of a layover somewhere God forsaken, maybe not finish till 1am or back up at 6am, working hours all over the place, not knowing where you'll be from day to day, no idea when you'll have a day off that won't be spent in bed asleep.

HydeRoad

Aww, nobody has any horror stories about their transport jobs! I have a few, but don't want to be always moaning on here. I was actually hoping somebody might tell us there are GOOD jobs in transport, as I've been unable to find any!

murphaph

HydeRoad wrote: »

Aww, nobody has any horror stories about their transport jobs! I have a few, but don't want to be always moaning on here. I was actually hoping somebody might tell us there are GOOD jobs in transport, as I've been unable to find any!

......ask this lad if he like his job....

BendiBus

HydeRoad wrote: »

I was actually hoping somebody might tell us there are GOOD jobs in transport, as I've been unable to find any!

I have a good job in transport.