{"id":9067,"date":"2016-06-21T16:53:34","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T15:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=9067"},"modified":"2016-06-21T16:53:34","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T15:53:34","slug":"broken-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=9067","title":{"rendered":"‘Broken promises’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Weymouth bus bosses have been accused of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098broken promises and bad faith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as a further four days of strike action from (June 27) were announced\u00c2\u00a0 to follow on from this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strike in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098poor relations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pay dispute.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More than 110 drivers, based at Weymouth and Bridport, members of Unite started striking yesterday (June 20) until just before 4am on Saturday (June 25).<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four days of further strike action have been announced, as Unite accused the management at First Hampshire & Dorset Ltd of twice offering to improve the pay and then refusing to budge once the talks convened.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are faced with an intolerable situation where twice in the last ten days the management have said that they would come to the table with an improved offer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and on both occasions they have not budged,” said Unite regional officer Bob Lanning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis dispute is being pockmarked by the management\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad faith and broken promises. As a result, we are calling four more days of strike action next week as our members are very angry at the management\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s duplicity.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The strikes will run from at 4:30am\u00c2\u00a0 on Monday, June 27, ending at 4:29am on Tuesday, June 28; from 4:30am on Wednesday June 29 until 04:29am on Thursday June 30; from 4:30am on Friday July 1, ending at 4:29am on Saturday, July 2; and from 4:30am on Sunday, July 3 until 4:29am on Monday, July 4.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Weymouth bus drivers in Dorset and Bridport are fed up with being the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098poor relations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in the First Group \u00e2\u20ac\u0098family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. Unite argues that First Group is a very profitable UK company that can afford to reward its Bristol drivers with a 13 per cent increase, but for its employees in Weymouth and Bridport\u00c2\u00a0 the deal on the table is only 2.3 per cent over two years from August 2015.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Weymouth and Bridport drivers earn about \u00c2\u014118,300-a-year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or \u00c2\u01418.80 an hour, while First Group drivers in Yeovil are on \u00c2\u01419.50 per hour. Drivers working for rival firms in Bournemouth and Poole earn nearly \u00c2\u01412 an hour more.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite\u00e2\u20ac\u0098s door for talks is always open, but the negotiations must be genuine from the management side,” Lanning added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe know that the strikes are causing inconvenience for the travelling public \u00e2\u20ac\u201c striking is the last thing our members want, but they are fed up with being the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098poor relations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 when it comes to pay compared with other First Bus drivers in the West Country,” he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFirst Bus is a profitable company and only last week announced a UK-wide profit for its bus division of \u00c2\u014152 million \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the money is there, but, not apparently, for our lowly paid members.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly 90 per cent of the drivers voted in favour of strike action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weymouth bus bosses have been accused of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098broken promises and bad faith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as a further four days of strike action from (June 27) were announced\u00c2\u00a0 to follow on from this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strike in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098poor relations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pay dispute.   More than 110 drivers, based at Weymouth and Bridport, members of Unite started striking yesterday (June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[176,211],"wps_subtitle":"Bus drivers ramp up dispute","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9069,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions\/9069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}