![]() "It's basically worth about two dollars an hour to a driver on top of what they're earning," he said. The province tried to address the issue a number of years ago under the former Liberal government by paying drivers an additional $1,000 per term as a retention bonus on top of their salary through the Driver Retention Program, but some industry insiders say the money isn't enough.ĭriver shortages affect families in the London region on a daily basis, according to the head of the company responsible for marshaling buses and routes, but the shortages only affect 11 out of 1,100 total routes, or one per cent. There are a lot of variables and some people really don't want to deal with a lot of that." Provincial retainers not enough, says industry "You have to be okay with working twice a day, and you don't know if you're going to be out on the road if the weather is bad. Whitehead said the low pay, combined with irregular hours, keeps many workers away from what he described as a "niche kind of job." "I don't think are being paid fairly, and I think it's hard to retain drivers and recruit drivers with the amount of responsibility that we have," he said. I don't think are being paid fairly.- school bus driver Jim Whitehead Jim Whitehead, who drives a van for special needs children in the Aylmer area for Lang's Bus Lines and earns about 18 dollars an hour, said pay is a significant issue, especially for drivers of full-size school buses - responsible for up to 60 kids at a time. Most school bus drivers in the region aren't unionized, typically earn less than $20 an hour, work irregular hours in the form of a split shift and get little to no benefits. That's the role of the bus companies to do that." "The answer to anyone's question about that is pay them more," Readings told trustees. ![]() 'Pay them more,' says region's school bus czar When asked by trustees about the easiest to effectively recruit and retain school bus drivers to ease the pressure on families, Readings said it ultimately comes down to money. Since then, the shortages have affected families on a daily basis, said STS chief executive Ryan Readings, who told trustees at a public meeting Tuesday that his organization has never had to cancel more than 11 routes in a day - or one per cent of its 1,100 total routes. Like similar organizations across North America, Student Transportation Services (STS), which marshals school buses in the London region, has been dealing with a shortage of drivers for years, but the problem became more acute when the COVID-19 pandemic scared away workers who were circumspect about close interaction with children. The head of the non-profit corporation that organizes school buses for the London region told trustees at a Tuesday meeting of the Thames Valley District School Board the only way to solve an acute shortage of bus drivers is to pay them more.
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