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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2017 :: RMTnews 12 While different standards normally apply elsewhere in the EU, under UK working time rules, most bus drivers are only entitled to a break every five and a half hours. Unsurprisingly, the productive hours (ie revenue produced by the workforce), which transport companies extract from labour has in the last couple of years reached a record high - around 15 per cent more than in the mid-1990s. THINK! CAMPAIGN Lengthy periods of driving increases the risk of accidents occurring and injuries being sustained by passengers, pedestrians and other road users. The UK government’s road safety campaign “THINK!” highlights results of research and provides guidance. The campaign suggests that every two hours, motorists should take a 15 minute break from driving. That is sensible advice based on rigorous, scientifically- conducted analysis of driving performance and the occurrence of near-misses/ accidents. SEDENTARY WORKING – HEALTH AND SAFETY CONCERN Prolonged sedentary working (eg sitting at length while driving a bus) leads to a significant increase in the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, certain cancers, depression and muscle and joint problems. The Chief Medical Officer has declared that the amount of time which an individual spends sitting, should be minimised. Further, that seat-based work should be regularly broken up with active-movement breaks (for a minimum of two minutes, at least three times per hour). Last year RMT wrote to all bus companies with whom it has representation rights, highlighting the health implications for our driver members of prolonged sedentary working (ie sitting at the wheel without sufficient opportunity to intermittently stand/ walk about). RMT received the following response from Stagecoach suggesting that there were significant numbers of drivers who wanted to work overtime and that this was, in the company’s view, suggestive that our members are happy with their working conditions: “Generally, we would always seek to restrict the number of hard wired scheduling parameters to the legal requirements in order to retain the maximum flexibility both to achieve efficient duty schedules and good working arrangements for staff. Inefficiency simply increases labour cost which then constrains rates of pay. Every scheduling constraint has a cost. Producing duties which are unpalatable to staff increases absence levels and turnover which impact on service reliability and cost. It is clearly in everyone’s interest to work toward producing efficient, attractive duties. Experience has shown us that one driver’s “bad” duty can be another driver’s “good” duty and, therefore, rostering has a significant part to play in delivering efficiency and contented staff by packaging duties into rotas staffed by volunteers. Beyond that, if we insert a hard constraint to, say prohibit duty pieces in excess of 4.5 hours, this will have knock on effects in other ways changing the characteristics of other duties. For example, where there is a restriction on driving time to 4.5 hours, we are more likely to see a greater number of 3 part duties which are, themselves, often unpopular. Many sets of schedules will have 98% ok duties and 2% not so ok. Hardwiring the conditions which make that 2% unattractive could produce an overall poorer mix of duties. We have always been open to discussing schedules with staff representatives and have, for example, conducted a number of exercises at depots across the UK to eliminate duty pieces over 5 hours. To date, every time we have done so the local staff have opted to leave things alone as the knock on effects of the constraint produce an overall worse set of duties. Rather than insert additional arbitrary constraints, we would encourage dialogue locally between representatives and local management to work together to produce the optimum set of duties and rostering arrangements which deliver efficiency and staff satisfaction based on the particular preferences of the staff at each location. It is easy to point to one or two duties with unattractive features but often they drive attractive features across the rest of the rota.” RMT received no written response from any other company. Although no other companies replied, our letter has formally placed companies on BUSES – HOURS AND REST BREAKS RMT News reports on the campaign for a reduction in hours that drivers can be forced to work - and for an increase in rest breaks