Dublin Bus tables conditional pay offer of 12%

In terms of punctuality, they have been screwing up. Quite badly too. I know of at least one major Donnybrook 2 route where marked-in drivers have been warned that failure to improve (i.e. follow basic instructions, adhere to AVL and stop running early) could potentially result in it being lost next time it goes up for tender. For some reason, many senior drivers at DB seem to have huge problems with basic time-keeping, which the NTA has belatedly decided is an important part of running a bus service.

GAI aren't paying low wages - they compare well with the rest of the industry, especially with additional subsistence payments and bonuses included. And their drivers' basic take-home pay isn't a million miles from that of DB drivers either.

i am aware go ahead pay almost similar wages to db, i am almost certain at the time they entered i said that they would end up doing so.

it's doubtful time keeping issues are down to drivers alone if even, something tells me the NTA would find a new operator may still have issues due to the usual reasons, ridiculous amounts of car traffic and still not enough bus priority measures etc.

If a bus is running more than a minute early for more than a couple of stops, it is 100% down to the driver to rectify that. And it's easy too, so there's no valid excuse.

It's easy to rectify - just wait slightly longer at bus stops, pull up closer to kerbs, kneel the bus, allow passengers to sit down before moving off. And bear in mind that the driver also knows their route extremely well, and therefore knows where they'll gain or lose time and also when there is a lay-by coming up, or a set of traffic lights that'll lose them a minute or two. There's also a screen above their head which tells them whether they're +1 (a minute early) or -1 (a minute late), so there's no excuse for running early for more than a minute or two.

Yes, the NTA and local councils could do a lot more to assist public transport, making buses quicker and timing easier to predict. Banning on-street parking spaces on all bus routes would be a start. Also, they could build bus lanes that are wide enough to accommodate a bus. They could also have traffic lights turn green as soon as possible when a bus approaches, or remain green until an approaching bus has passed through.

not at all, just a realist.

Irish times reports a rejection of over 90%.

because if they strike the NTA can pull contract from DB for failure to deliver and retender. GA would be far more likely to win the than DB in such circumstance

So what happens next? No doubt They can go back to negotiating but I'm not sure how fruitful they could be given how far apart they seem to be?

Just for balance, I should probably point out that my two local DB routes have also had multiple cancellations the last few weeks. It's the same every summer.

Oh I know that and I wasn't trying to say that one is any better than the other.

I appreciate that this forum is mostly bus enthusiast’s and a few posters who actually work for DB, but I have noticed that many of the bus enthusiast’s have blinkers on and are certain they know everything and possibly more that those who work for DB about the inner working of DB.

There was a brief summation of the deal posted here, but it only skimmed over a few talking points , the devil is in the detail and it was not pretty so drivers rejected it 97.6% against.

The holiday increase element was a joke, currently clerical staff get 2 days more holidays than drivers, the deal offered a extra day at 20, 30 and 40 years, seeing as DB won’t hire you to drive if you are not 23 years old and retirement is 66, only a handful will get the 40 years and then get 1 day extra holiday for 3 years at best, it is seen as a pisstake.

The pay rise included 6% that was agreed to years ago, it was supposed to be paid out in January 2019, we were told it would be back dated, it’s not.

We see constantly here posters ranting about the marking in system, how it should be done away with as its not good for the spare drivers, well I hope that you do know that spare drivers outnumber marked in drivers and one of the parts of the deal that was voted on yesterday was to scrap the marking in system.

The new replacement system for marked in/spare is brutal, no one is happy, you might be aware of Bogie duties, well only some drivers like them, those who live near to the depot/city centre where these break, and they can go home, as you know many in Ireland commute 1+ hour to work each way, now imagine your work day was 4 hour work, 4 hours break and 4 hours work, we are looking at a 14+ hour day, the new “improved” system would have all drivers doing bogies,  now be honest would you be happy with that?  Work out how long your workday would be if you had to commute to the nearest DB depot and do a 12 hour bogie, not very appetising now is it?

The proposals have been totally rejected, I guess the few who voted in favour are coming up for retirement this year and would like a bigger pension, no one has an issue with them voting that way, we all would.

There is load more and you will see in the coming weeks and months, we now expect a wave of NTA PR about greedy bus drivers, truth be told the pay element was a distant second to the new rosters and work conditions.

As some here seem to be delighted at the prospect of the PSO contracts being pulled from DB , i will let you in on a little secret, DB drivers have ZERO worries about this, can you guess why? Its super simple, and no its not GA leaving the market.

i can tell you, "down/across the country" there's a private operator running a city service and paying approx €10 less per per hour than what bus eireann pay once you are there on the top rate(i.e use to be what you got after 4 years, think it's 7 now before you get top rate).

now, the tax man eats up a lot of that pay potentially if you are in a relationship with someone else working but otherwise it's a pretty big difference. private operators will cut it to the bone whereever they can, promises won't be kept, corners will be cut.

the problem with all this is simple, we have employees with different "rights" some people in the service sector for example are not treated very well IMO whereas people in the civil service(generally) have paid sick,, days have a job title and that's all they do, no initiative needed, very hard to get sacked etc etc.

in the private sector for example you have H&S rules for 2 man lifts, but there's often not 2 men around but the job still needs doing... wouldn't happen in the civil service probably.

people will need to be careful what they wish for, once all the drivers are gone for HGVs then there's a lot of jobs gone at rest stops etc. once all the cars are electric then you might aswell shut the ptrol stations. the batteries need to be a lot stronger so why bother stop mid route to charge your car for an hour or whatever.

when there's less jobs then what happens to the economy ? i don't think your average HGV driver can code very well.