Gold Coast bus drivers facing pay, roster and safety issues say Transport Workers Union

Unions have revealed the struggles facing Gold Coast bus drivers as operators battle to recruit staff. FULL DETAILS

Are our students being thrown under the bus?

While Gold Coast Surfside bus drivers have called off planned strike action after last ditch talks, over on social media our community pages are full of posts from concerned parents whose children have been late or even missed school due to delayed or cancelled services - regardless of any industrial action.

Take, for example, this comment from a Coomera parent:

“Today my son and a number of other kids were not picked up by their bus,” they wrote earlier this week.

“Over the past few weeks, my son has been late to school because of the buses being late or just not coming. This is to and from school.

“I rang the bus company today and asked what the heck is going on … I was provided zero reasons why the bus didn’t come today.

“Now my son is not at school because I’m at work and he can’t get there.”

Triple M Gold Coast breakfast co-host Ali Plath. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

Those sentiments were echoed multiple times in the comments beneath, with even Triple M Gold Coast breakfast co-host Ali Plath discussing on air the issues her own children have had with delayed and cancelled school bus services.

Before this week’s strike was called off, Kinetic General Manager for South East Queensland James Saltmer, operator of Surfside, promised the group would do all it could to aid student transportation during the industrial action.

Which is great, but what about every other day?

Kinetic says while school services are always prioritised, traffic congestion and other factors, particularly driver absenteeism, can result in delays.

“Driver availability as a result of above average absenteeism and illness has recently impacted some bus services and when a driver is unavailable for a school run another driver will be allocated to the shift as soon as practicable so that the service continues to operate,” says Mr Saltmer.

“Labour shortages are impacting many industries and Kinetic is actively recruiting experienced bus drivers on the Gold Coast and Tweed Coast.”

To their credit, 76 new drivers have joined the service over the last three months.

But unfortunately it’s not enough.

“People are leaving for three main reasons. There’s the pay issue, where Queensland has been completely left behind the other states,” says TWU director of organising Jared Abbott.

“There’s the massive safety issue – we’re dealing with at least one assault every single day. Our drivers do not have a secure cabin, there is no genuine security monitoring and it’s very dangerous.

“The third issue is that drivers have very little say in how buses and the rosters are run. They are given such unsociable shifts with poor hours and poor rostering, it’s very hard to get any sort of work/life balance.

“So they end up thinking, why stay in this industry? They can go somewhere else, get a secure job with 9-5 hours and decent money rather than put their lives on the line as a bus driver.”

Kinetic has struggled to recruit enough drivers among a general labour shortage across the economy. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

Look, I choose to believe that both the TWU and Kinetic are trying to reach a compromise whereby our drivers receive fair compensation and safety standards, but at a cost that won’t break business.

When it comes to the specifics of money, Mr Abbott says Kinetic currently pays Queensland drivers $26 per hour, compared to the $35 per hour it pays Victorian drivers.

Under the recently rejected pay offer, drivers would receive an 8.2 per cent pay increase, with another increase of at least four per cent to be applied in October, raising the base rate for full-time drivers to $31.21 per hour.

Whether you consider the wages of our bus drivers high, low or fair, the fact is that whatever pay and conditions have been offered, simply have not been enough to fill those drivers’ seats.

The reality is that we’re in the middle of a staff shortage across the country and across almost every industry. Workers are in the driver’s seat … they can pick and choose the job that is best for them.

Kudos to Kinetic for its recruitment programs, including targeting women with the Women Up Front program, as well as making it easier to become a bus driver. And I am confident that both Kinetic and the TWU prioritise the safe transport of children.

But sometimes, money really does talk.

And meanwhile, it looks like kids may have to walk.