Fri 30 Nov 2018, 07:49 AM | Posted by editor
Letter from a Stagecoach bus driver
I can’t leave the news reports regarding the bus crash in Coventry without comment. Ultimately, it is the bus company, Stagecoach, that was responsible for the fatalities. The media have focused on the fact that the driver was aged 77 at the time of the accident and has been diagnosed with dementia. It has also been reported that the driver had been working in excess of 70 hours a week.
None of the reports that I have heard, have asked the question, ‘why is a guy of this age working these long hours?’ It is rooted in the lack of financial security for many of today’s workers in Britain. Good occupational pension schemes are few and far between and they are voluntary, rather than mandatory.
The old comedian Max Bygraves had a catchphrase: “I’ll tell you a story”. Well, here’s one: Recently, when reporting for duty, control staff asked me to sign a waiver on working no more than 48 hrs in a week. This is a EU directive which asserts that working over 48 hrs a week is unhealthy. However, it is voluntary and workers can opt out by signing a waiver. I declined to sign. At the end of my duty, I was called in by a manager who urged me to sign because it meant they had to monitor my hours. If I signed the waiver, they don’t. To cut a long story short, I still decided not to sign.
So here we have it: they don’t give a toss about excessive hours, only the ‘red tape’ that goes with complying with the directive.
It appears that the parents of the child who died in the Coventry accident have set up a campaign to prohibit staff from working beyond the normal retirement age. I hope that both Labour and the trade union movement support this demand alongside making the EU directive on maximum hours mandatory. However, at least in times of economic upturns, staff shortage would lead to significant service cuts. No doubt, measures like the above will receive howls of protest from the bus operators. Ultimately, only the renationalization of the big bus operators can ensure the safety of passengers and bus workers alike.
