200 employees of Xplore Dundee who are members of union Unite are to take 12 weeks of strike action from Monday 12 June. It comes after talks involving ACAS ended on 9 June without achieving a resolution to a pay dispute.
Those discussions had commenced three days earlier but they have since been described as “meaningless” by Unite. It says that 93% of its members at Xplore Dundee supported strike action on an 89% turnout at a recent ballot. The dispute involves administrative staff, drivers and duty managers.
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham adds that the dispute will only be remedied if the McGill’s Group subsidiary “significantly” improves its position on pay. Unite says that its members have rejected a 7% offer and that it has “not been improved upon to date.”
McGill’s Group CEO Ralph Roberts has refuted that claim. He says that at the ACAS talks, the operator “amended” its offer in a bid to meet the union’s aspirations, and that “several improved offers” were put forward at that time.
Mr Roberts adds that Unite has not put any revised proposal to its members. He has also attacked Ms Graham and Unite Regional Coordinating Officer Dougie Maguire, accusing them of having “sold a false expectation” to members. The operator will write to staff over coming days to outline the revised offer that was made at the ACAS talks.
Unite claims that “sales” at Xplore Dundee have grown by 10.4% between 2017 and 2022 but that average pay per employee fell in real terms by 14% over the same period. McGill’s purchased the operation from National Express in late 2020.
Mr Maguire has accused the operator of a “cynical” attempt to block strike action by seeking talks involving ACAS “on the last day possible when [it] has had months to resolve this dispute.”
The union also claims that Xplore Dundee employees’ wages have fallen behind those of other operators’ staff in Fife and Tayside and that some terms and conditions are inferior.
The operator says that under its most recent offer, the hourly rate for drivers would reach £15.02 from January 2024 and that a 7% offer has already been accepted elsewhere across the McGill’s Group and by engineers at Xplore Dundee.
During the strike, Xplore Dundee will operate a modified Sunday timetable on many routes but with no services after 1900hrs. Some services will be suspended, including home-to-school routes in Dundee and Fife. The action is scheduled to run until 3 September.
