Driving a bus or a coach in France was for a long time considered a breeze compared to the hard labour of lorry drivers. This is no longer the case says Christophe Chiclet

Punishing hours, low wages, a proliferation of different tasks, exhausting work, insecurity, part-time contracts, worn-out and dangerous vehicles, the use of subcontractors, lack of training; the job of passenger-driver is becoming an absolute hell.

The independent consultancy Evoliance, which was commissioned by the employers' association for this branch of industry recently published some revealing figures. Wages have risen over 15 years by only eight per cent; 30 per cent of drivers are over 45, and 20 per cent are declared unfit to drive before they reach 50. Fifty per cent of businesses in the sector have fewer than 50 employees and do not recognise trade unions; and 50 per cent of drivers have been hired on a part-time basis.

Serge Goude, a driver with Courriers bretons, based in St-Malo, switched to buses after seven years as a long distance lorry driver in order to spend more time with this family.

After 12 years working full time with Courriers bretons, his net monthly salary is only slightly higher than the index-linked minimum wage. "Driver-conductors need to be paid two to three euros an hour more to have a decent standard of living", says Goude, who is Force Ouvrière shop steward at his company, and a member of the works council.

Public services are being targeted by the large private groups. The water-distribution and -treatment sector was the first to be affected, causing bills to rise and working conditions to deteriorate. Next came the passenger-transportation sector.

This is an extremely broad sector, covering schoolbus services, city bus routes, inter-city bus and coach routes, domestic tourism, and international tourism. In short, five completely different jobs, but all performed by the same drivers, who work in these five sectors indiscriminately - sometimes in the space of a single day: a school run in the morning, a city or long-distance route at midday, local tourism in the afternoon, and the return school run in the evening. Serge explains: "In the course of a working day that can sometimes stretch to 10 or 11 hours, I could be driving five or six different rigs."

Multinational takeovers
Three large groups are in the process of swallowing up the sector: Véolia Environnement (part of Vivendi), Kéolis (a subsidiary of the SCNF that is part-owned by Vivendi and a British pension fund), and Transdev, part of the Caisse des depots.

The heavyweight of the bunch is Véolia. MХhamed Marham, FO union representative on the works council of the Véolia group and delegate of the trade-union confederation at Connex (Véolia's transport subsidiary), explains: "Véolia operates in four sectors: waste, power, water, and transport. Véolia has been the cash cow of the Vivendi group. Its transport sector is Connex, whose head office is in Nanterre. It is Europe's leading private operator in the passenger-transportation sector."

Connex has 55,000 employees in 22 countries, 95 per cent of whom work for local authorities. The Paris City Transport Authority (RATP) contracts out its Rueil-Pont-de-Sèvres and Rueil-La-Celle-Saint-Cloud bus routes to Connex. And for a very good reason: Connex drivers are paid 1400 euros a month, whereas at RATP they get over 1600-1800 euros. The public-transport systems of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Bordeaux and Nancy have also got caught in Connex's net. M'hamed explains: "Even so, wages at Connex are not quite as bad as in the small firms. Following a recent strike, we have just won an increase of two per cent, plus an annual bonus of 75 euros."

The big private firms are buying up small ones by the dozen, or are using them as subcontractors so as to look attractive in invitations to tender, by lowering their prices, cutting back on wages and welfare. M'hamed says: "In the Paris suburbs, it's hell. The drivers have backaches and, now -stomach aches, what with the stress caused by attacks. I myself have been attacked. In addition, traffic jams always make us late, and these delays gobble up our rest time."

But it's no paradise in the provinces, either. Serge Goude explains: "Courriers bretons belongs to the Keolis group. We are a relatively large firm, with 150 employees, of whom 110 are drivers. We are a rare creature in this industry, as we are very unionised - 50 drivers are members of Force Ouvrière. That's how we've been able to win an increase of 10.58 per cent since 2001. But in the small firms, there are no pay rises. Sometimes the boss slips a driver some cash under the table if he agrees to remove his control disk, in breach of the law, so as to work longer hours."

Given that the switchover to the euro has caused prices of everyday goods to rise by 15 per cent, it's not even a question of keeping pace with inflation.

Serge continues that, to rub salt into the wound, there are now many retired police officers working in the business. "They are looking for extra income, and don't have the mentality to make demands. Ditto for the farmers and their wives, who drive school buses to supplement their income."

Competition among the big groups is now being intensified by the opening-up of the market to drivers from the rest of Europe. The British are in the process of grabbing market shares in western France by submitting low bids, slashing wages and safety measures. Polish drivers are more than happy to be paid 800 to 900 euros a month, while the Lithuanians are content with 600 to 700 euros - that is half the level of French wages.

State negligence
The parishes, districts, county and regional councils all have budgetary constraints. When there are invitations to tender, they always pick the cheapest company, which means, quite obviously, the lowest tender on all social levels: pay, the safety of drivers and passengers, flexible hours. For elected representatives who should be concerning themselves with the welfare of their fellow citizens, this is a disgrace.

It is no coincidence that the contracts between the councils and the transport companies have been shortened in order to maximise the free play of competition: from 10 years to six in the long-distance sector, and from 10 years to five in the city-transport sector.

The authorities are not monitoring the transport companies, which regularly violate the collective agreement by paying their drivers less than the agreed rate. They are also not monitoring the dilapidation of the fleet of buses, which are often 20 years old. Since October 2002, all new passenger-transport vehicles must by law be fitted with seatbelts. But coaches less than two years old are a rare sight on French roads and drivers complain that those seatbelts in use are ergonomically unsuitable.

Even more seriously, buses and coaches are not fitted with rollover bars. When a bus overturns, it is flattened like a pancake with all the occupants inside.
Serge Goude recalls an unfortunate incident last year: "A company from the Rennes suburbs, M. Transport, operates routes on which there are 30 passenger-pickup points. The drivers start work at 04:00. They drive 10 to 11 hours a day, sometimes 15. (DELETION) One awful morning, at 07:00, an exhausted driver had an accident. He died, along with six passengers. So what's happening now? M. Transport is continuing to operate school bus services. The county council is saying nothing. The elected representatives don't give a damn, and the bosses don't respect anything anymore."

It is not only an occupation with over 60,000 employees, including 37,000 drivers, that is in danger; millions of passengers are in the same boat, thanks to the practice of always picking the lowest tender.
 
Empty hours without pay
On 18 April 2002, a government decree came into effect that boosted the institution of part-time work.

This agreement includes the annualization or modulation of hours and ensures that drivers who are waiting do not get paid.

"When I'm working the Saint-Malo-Cancale route, I have to hang around in Cancale for four hours before making the return journey," Serge Goude explains. "But in Cancale there are no facilities for us: no premises, no cafeteria, no rest room, no shower. I wait behind the cemetery. In mid-winter, it can get quite depressing."

Ditto for drivers who, after doing a school run in the morning, don't then have any city buses or intercity coaches to drive. They sit there twiddling their thumbs without receiving a single euro. In the employers' view, there's no reason why they should get paid, as they could be doing another job while they are waiting.

But when you're waiting in different locations, sometimes at a depot or in a village square a long way from home, it is difficult to see how or where one could commit to another regular job. FO is fighting to have all waiting time paid at the normal rate and so reverse this attack on an increasingly downtrodden public service sector.

Christophe Chicolet is a freelance journalist based in France. This article originally appeared in FO, the magazine of Force Ouvriere.