Bus Vannin in Crisis

[2112]

14 minutes ago, Banker said:

It’s like most of government workers, watch the sickness levels amongst teachers rise next week when schools go back!!

IOMG are supposed to have HR procedures for absences due to sickness. It’s up to them to actually implement, enforce and disciplinary action taken against anyone found to have abused the rules. If a IOMG employee is pictured ‘trackside’, then an investigation needs to be launched, an appropriate action taken, if proved.
 

One of the issues arisen out of Covid etc is management scared to upset the staff for fear of staff walkouts or industrial action. Staff in some cases may have the upper hand. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by 2112

[offshoremanxman]

33 minutes ago, 2112 said:

IOMG are supposed to have HR procedures for absences due to sickness. It’s up to them to actually implement, enforce and disciplinary action taken against anyone found to have abused the rules.

It’s the same right across the public sector. Procedures that just aren’t followed and general slack culture. That said most of the bus drivers you see appear to be well over 50 and massively overweight so I’m sure that contributes here too. 

[Banker]

2 hours ago, 2112 said:

IOMG are supposed to have HR procedures for absences due to sickness. It’s up to them to actually implement, enforce and disciplinary action taken against anyone found to have abused the rules. If a IOMG employee is pictured ‘trackside’, then an investigation needs to be launched, an appropriate action taken, if proved.
 

One of the issues arisen out of Covid etc is management scared to upset the staff for fear of staff walkouts or industrial action. Staff in some cases may have the upper hand. 

Disciplinary action is very rarely taken in public sector, in private sector they would be & the sick pay would be getting stopped for a lot of the skivers, as i mentioned previously I expect public sector absences to rise next week once school holidays are over!

[Mistercee]

3 hours ago, manxfisherman said:

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/frustration-over-bus-drivers-sick-leave-561797

Ace.

But doesn't this come back to the Zero Hours type contracts they are mostly on? As I understand it very few of the drivers are effectively full time permanent staff and can pick and choose where they work. I have heard stories about drivers working ion hospitality over the TT period because they were able to earn more per hour than they were paid on the busses. Without a full complement of permanent drivers how can they be rostered to provide full cover for the scheduled services?        

[Roger Mexico]

As ever it's worth rummaging through what emails have been released (FoI Search: Case ID 2570025; Title  Bus Cancellations;  Appendix 1).  As usual there are pointless and inconsistent redactions (apparently telling us who the Minister was would infringe GDPR) which makes it hard to follow, but reading between the lines Longworth told Crookall a load of complete tosh, which he then repeated in Tynwald, including the stuff about nothing being cancelled, just very, very late.  Which we all sort of guessed at, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

It also means, given where the information came from, we ought to be very cautious about believing Longworth's stuff about everything being the fault of slacking bus drivers.  There's a telling extract in one email (page 9 of pdf):

So I have not told staff not to advise of cancelled services simply there are none. I think you may be referring to a Facebook post by our ex driver [redacted] who had a horrendous sick record and we think was actually working elsewhere.  [He] posted the picture of the horse tram test and has made the allegation you appear to have repeated which I think is based on no posting that day.

Of course we know there were loads of cancellations in reality.  Also if someone is an ex-employee why denounce them for working elsewhere.  Everyone is ganging up on poor little Ian, though if all your staff are dishonest slackers after you've been in charge of the organisation for over a decade - who's to blame for that?

[MrGarrison]

2 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

.Everyone is ganging up on poor little Ian, though if all your staff are dishonest slackers after you've been in charge of the organisation for over a decade - who's to blame for that?

It’s just classic bullying and character assassination in an attempt to discredit someone so who has said something you don’t like. Typical nasty IOM Government management behaviour. 

[manxchester]

8 hours ago, Banker said:

It’s like most of government workers, watch the sickness levels amongst teachers rise next week when schools go back!!

So you expect more teachers to be off sick next week compared to the previous weeks when they’ve not been in work and so can’t be off sick??

[Zarley]

20 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

...I think you may be referring to a Facebook post by our ex driver [redacted] who had a horrendous sick record and we think was actually working elsewhere.  [He] posted the picture of the horse tram test and has made the allegation you appear to have repeated which I think is based on no posting that day.

...

 Also if someone is an ex-employee why denounce them for working elsewhere.  

I read that as meaning they (BV) thought the ex-bus driver was working elsewhere while he was employed by Bus Vannin, which I suppose could/would have contributed to his "horrendous sick record". 

If the ex-driver was on a ZHC with BV, he probably needed a second job to make ends meet. If that was the case, can you blame him? ZHCs have no place in front-line public service roles. 

I can't believe Ian Lieworth is going to be permitted to retire with his gold-plated pension intact. Where is the accountability? Where is the disincentive for other lying civil servants going forward? As it is, lying, bullying and other nefarious activities are handsomely rewarded. It has to stop. 

[Banker]

18 hours ago, manxchester said:

So you expect more teachers to be off sick next week compared to the previous weeks when they’ve not been in work and so can’t be off sick??

I don’t expect actual sickness will be any higher but reported sickness will be as many take an extra weeks paid holidays !

[hissingsid]

The busses seem to be on track again so panic over.   I think having a two tiered pay rate for drivers is wrong it will lead to bad feeling and a dissatisfied workforce, it should be sorted out once and for all.

 

 

 

 

[0bserver]

10 hours ago, hissingsid said:

The busses seem to be on track again so panic over.   I think having a two tiered pay rate for drivers is wrong it will lead to bad feeling and a dissatisfied workforce, it should be sorted out once and for all.

 

 

 

 

You mean they've stopped reporting the cancellations (again).

[Roger Mexico]

19 hours ago, Zarley said:

I read that as meaning they (BV) thought the ex-bus driver was working elsewhere while he was employed by Bus Vannin, which I suppose could/would have contributed to his "horrendous sick record". 

I suppose that's possible, one of the things you discover from these emails is that Longworth is barely comprehensible a lot of the time.  Like a lot of bullies he seems to think that everyone else is obliged to know what he means, so he doesn't need to make himself clear.  Though anyone throwing a sickie to work elsewhere in the Isle of Man in the age of camera phones could be disciplined with evidence and if Bus Vannin are imposing exclusive ZHCs, it's no wonder they've got no drivers.

The most revealing thing is the way that Longworth tries to defend himself from something embarrassing not by explaining what went wrong or whatever, but by attacking the person who supplied the information.  Who you are is the important thing, not what you do.  And people say he didn't adapt to Manx ways.

But my main point is that given that he was clearly lying to his Minister in these emails, we should treat everything else in them with a lot of caution - a rule that the paper would have been sensible to follow.

[Boo Gay'n]

I was in Port Erin on Bank Holiday Monday last week and saw Longworth working on the toy trains.  He clearly hasn't gone yet!

[Bandits]

2 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

I suppose that's possible, one of the things you discover from these emails is that Longworth is barely comprehensible a lot of the time.  Like a lot of bullies he seems to think that everyone else is obliged to know what he means, so he doesn't need to make himself clear.  Though anyone throwing a sickie to work elsewhere in the Isle of Man in the age of camera phones could be disciplined with evidence and if Bus Vannin are imposing exclusive ZHCs, it's no wonder they've got no drivers.

I think you’ll find that “working elsewhere” actually means “Doing less zero hours work for us as he’s getting more pay allocating his time elsewhere to a better paying ZHC employer” which anyone on zero hours contracts is perfectly free to do. They aren’t exclusive employment contracts and likely a lot of the shortages are down to this where people getting £10 an hour driving a bus might be able to get £12.50 an hour working in B&Q or anywhere else and so are turning down some of the hours that BV offer them because why would you work for less than you can get anywhere else if you don’t have to? 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Bandits

[Roger Mexico]

16 hours ago, hissingsid said:

The busses seem to be on track again so panic over.   

I'm not sure they are.  According to announcements in August (including to Tynwald questions) they were supposed to be going back to the original timetable at the start of September.  But the schools are back this week and there doesn't seem to be any change.