I have a question for you bus drivers out there.
How are your routes distributed? For example we have a new driver who just started this year because of a driver that quit...leaving a route open. If no other driver wants the open route, the new guy gets it...right? What if he doesn't? Can a lower seniority driver bump a higher driver out? What if route locations plays into this. The new guy lives in a different route (my route), and thinks to save the school $$ it would be best for him to have my route.
I'm not going to give my route up. I love most of my kids. What would your district do in a situation like this?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Bus Route/Seniority question for drivers
at 10:34 AM
Labels: Seniority rights
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4 comments:
Oh wow...I can so relate to this though i don't have any good answers. At this point where I am currently working routes are assigned by seniority first - as far as who is offered a route followed by driver location. Routes are designed to work mainly around where the bus is parked - whether that is at home or another location. Used to be (when I lived back in OK) we parked all our buses in a central location and routes were strictly by seniority...we bid on them if interested and the person with highest seniority got it.
Keep us posted on how this works out.
Our route assignments are very unusual. Once we have a route it is ours for life as long as we sign to keep it by a certain date in the summer; a more senior driver can not take it away. The dispatcher can make minor changes to the routes and we see these before we sign. Any routes that drivers didn't want to keep and didn't sign for, new routes and routes open because a driver left are then bid on by seniority (but if you signed to keep your route you can't bid no matter how much seniority you have.) We are also salaried rather than hourly which is also very unusual, at least around here.
The two other places I've worked rebid all of the routes every summer based on seniority. The buses were all parked at the same location so we didn't run into your problem. All the districts I have worked for had unions and the bidding and overtime issues were clearly covered in the contract.
Have you talked about this to the boss? Are they willing to risk loosing a seasoned veteran to make a newbie happy? Following on Edith's comment could you offer to park someplace closer to your route as a last resort?
Just curious. If you park at home and there is something wrong with your bus in the morning then what? Being at the garage I just get a mechanic and he either fixes it right then or hands me keys to a spare.
Where I drive, we all park at the garage.They are district owned also.
And our routes & busses are ours til we give them up or transfer to a vacant route.
We are also a union shop(though management is trying to get rid of it), and we are paid by the route and seniority.(Doesn't matter the length of the route.)
Found your blog through blogger! In our district end of every year you give up your route...on bidding day there is an order of bidding with about 15 min. to look at what is left on the table. (a week before all are posted so you can look at leisure) If for some reason a route is open during the yr. people get to sign up for it (most senority gets it)
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