CORPORATE TAKEOVERS AND THE BUS INDUSTRY

CARTOON: East Midlands Bus branch secretary Dave P aling has a talent he can’t help indulging in, caricatures. Here is the top table from this year’s bus conference(from left to right) Malcolm Cherry of Thompsons solicitors, conference chair P ete Edwards, Keith Murphy Isle of Wight branch, AGS Mick Cash, EC member Dave Letcher, RMT president Alex Gordon and Bob Crow R ecent corporate takeovers in the transport sector like German state railways Deutsche Bahn’s acquisition of Arriva represents a real threat to local bus services and passengers will be the ones paying the price. In this complicated world of mergers and acquisitions the drive for profits may well outweigh the need for listening and responding to the needs of very people that use the services. Moreover, things are getting complicated. For instance, Transdev is a major London bus operator which runs London United and London Sovereign and also owns Bournemouth Transport Ltd, trading under the name Yellow Buses. Paris metro operator RATP has 25 per cent of Transdev’s shares. But relations between both companies are complicated, since Transdev president Philippe Segretain did not agree with this alliance with RATP from the beginning. But the other major investor in Transdev – the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations – forced Transdev to accept RATP as a partner. Now it seems Transdev wants a separation from RATP which will be a blow for RATP president Pierre Mongin who wanted to buy out the transit operator. Transdev is now moving into a marriage of convenience with Veolia Transport, once the divorce is finalised with RATP. The operation, which would create a transport giant with around £7 billion in revenues and 130,000 employees, would take the form of a merger between Veolia Transport and Transdev, with the Caisse des Dépôts and Veolia Environnement each owning 50 per cent. If this seems like a huge game of monopoly, well, it is. Moving on, First Group and Stagecoach made no effort to hide their fight last year to buy the National Express Group which, according to The Daily Telegraph on April 29, was recently forced to postpone a 300 million euro bond auction because of the current financial chaos. In retaliation for National Express not accepting buy out attempts, First Group has now put a new Greyhound service from Portsmouth and Southampton to London and Bournemouth from this month. The Southampton service has been reduced to accommodate the Bournemouth twice a day service. One wonders if First Group will reveal the current status on their profit and loss sheet. National Express last year sold some of its profitable assets such Travel London and Travel Surrey to Netherlands Rail company Abellio. It is believed that Abellio spent an awful lot of money renewing much of the working fleet after their acquisition. As a result of all this France, Germany and Holland are now on the bus transport map in the UK. Moreover, it will be interesting what the Monopolies and Mergers Commission makes of all this. Wilts and Dorset Bus Company managing director Alex Carter recently told the Bournemouth Evening Echo that it could not afford to continue paying for the sponsorship on the Bournemouth Air Festival as it was losing too much through the free travel scheme for the over 60’s. Wilts and Dorset is part of Go-Ahead South. How long before First Group, Stagecoach and the Go-Ahead group succumb to the money magnets from Europe or even the world? Cassandra example in what was becoming a huge game of monopoly. “The French and Germans are competing for these franchises and the drive for profits will be intensified as a result, putting the squeeze on services and pay,” he said. Conference also called on the union to negotiate with all bus employers for an increase and or introduction of paid time off for employees when the death of a relative occurs. Paul Rossiter, South Devon Bus said that the population had become very transient and it was not uncommon for employees suffering a bereavement in the family to have to travel from one end of country to the other in order to attend funerals or deal with legal matters. “It would not cost the employer much to implement such a policy but it would give comfort and support to those bereaved workers,” he said. Conference recognised the difficulties for bus drivers that carry out mixed EU and domestic work on a regular basis, to understand the rules and record the hours worked when complying with EU regulations on Tachograph use. Keith Sanders-Hole, Exeter No.2 said that the union should lobby the Department of Transport to simplify these mixed driving rules to make easier to understand and record such working. “No-one seems to know how these rules work in reality and, at the end of day, it’s our licence at stake if members unwittingly break these unclear rules,” he said. Conference instructed the union to raise the issues of elderly passengers falling on buses. Keith Murphy Newport Isle of Wight No 2 warned that drivers were receiving the blame for these incidents/accidents. “The reason for so many accidents of this type is that the bus running times have not been adjusted for the elderly to get on and off the buses, and this places extra pressure upon our members in trying to carry out their daily work,” he said. Paul Rossiter said that members should not speed up if it endangers passengers and if drivers are forced to do so there is something wrong”. Jim Udale, Poole and District successfully moved a motion for the union to campaign for discounted bus travel to the men and women in the armed forces on all rural, urban and metropolitan services. RMT News editor Brian Denny addressed conference and conceded that coverage of the bus sector could be improved. “If bus workers have stories about any activities in their area they can contact me at head office and we can follow it up, you can e-mail me at bdenny@rmt.org.uk,” he said CORPORATE TAKEOVERS AND THE BUS INDUSTRY RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: may 2010 :: RMTnews 19