Bank Holiday Services

Adrian

9,583

29 Mar 2017, 5:46 pm #147

(28 Mar 2017, 11:15 pm)Ambassador They don't care. As if proven by their scheduling and attitude.

We're a service led economy up here, large numbers of people work Bank Holidays and the rest tend to go out and enjoy. They aren't the lazy Sundays they once were and none of the companies have reacted.

Welcome to the North East, the local public transport time is 1950.

But hey....we've got power sockets and NSAs!

It looks more to me like a company making a commercial decision to provide a level of service on a bank holiday, rather than workers refusing to do it. The schedulers can only work with what frequencies they're told are running on a bank holiday. I do agree that the bus industry up here is well behind with the times in that respect, but that is the model we're stuck with for now. This is nothing new, it isn't good enough, and it doesn't seem to be improving. Most of Durham was again without buses on Boxing Day.

We may be a service driven economy in your view, but a service provider is still entitled to decide on what level of service it provides to it's customers. Perhaps that is a direct result at the lack of competition in key areas.

(29 Mar 2017, 4:10 pm)James101 Again, for a company with as many employees as GNE, there should be a set process to ensure only a set number of people can have any particular day off. If GNE, or any other company, approve too many holiday requests, that's poor management. Sundays and bank holidays are not God-given rights as days off, the law seems them as any other day. Any extra benefits surrounding bank holiday working are at the discretion of the employer and can be withdrawn.

Do you honestly think there wouldn't be? 2000 staff with the majority being drivers, working obscure shift pattern, and across several locations? I'd suggest the system is almost cast iron.

(28 Mar 2017, 10:39 pm)James101 Massive opportunity for effieciency here then - though they seem to manage when emergency tenders for metro etc come up

I'd suggest anything less than 4 weeks notice to alter a shift is unreasonable. All employees, no matter who they work for, are entitled to a work-life balance. Giving them one lot of shifts, and then changing them for another with minimal notice, is unreasonable in my opinion. Plenty of opportunity for businesses to resource with volunteers working a rest day or overtime, if needs must.

Planned Metro tenders are normally awarded ages in advance, but even then, it is with volunteers to some degree from what I've seen, based on which drivers are working those services. The emergency requests (rather than tenders) for replacement buses is usually staffed with lead drivers and others that are not scheduled to be on the road.

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