More than 600 interested to join S’pore team: Tower Transit
Tower Transit runs about 650 buses in London and Cambridge with 2,000 employees and carries more than 115 million passengers a year. Photo: Tower Transit
SINGAPORE — More than 600 people have expressed interest in joining United Kingdom-based Tower Transit via the company’s website, within a week of the foreign operator clinching the inaugural tender for the Government’s new bus contracting model.
The figure was revealed by Mr Greg Balkin, transition director at Tower Transit and its sister company Transit Systems.
Speaking to TODAY in Sydney earlier this week, he said the people who have indicated their interest comprise those who probably “haven’t thought about bus industries as a career option” before, and those currently working in bus companies in the Republic.
Tower Transit plans to hire more than 900 staff for its operations here, including 700 drivers.
Under the contract, Tower Transit will operate the new Bulim Bus Depot, as well as ply 26 routes from the Bukit Batok, Clementi and Jurong East interchanges. It will start rolling out the bus services in three tranches from the second quarter of next year. Recruitment efforts will begin in earnest six to nine months before hand, the operator had previously said.
Mr Balkin concedes that his company would not be able to get access to many of the drivers currently on the payroll of incumbent public transport operators SBS Transit and SMRT “until quite close to the start”. The industry has had to cope with a shortage of bus drivers, with the incumbent operators stepping up recruitment from overseas in recent years.
Tower Transit chief executive officer Adam Leishman said the operator entered the Singapore market with eyes wide open. “We bid for this contract knowing the manpower challenges that exist here,” he said. “Our planning takes that into account and we are very confident that our training and development of our new employees will be attractive to a large number of Singaporeans (who) have not previously considered employment in the transport industry as well as many who wish to continue to work in the industry.”
Given the real possibility that the operator could be hiring many drivers who are totally new to the industry, Mr Leishman said all drivers, regardless of whether they have prior driving experience, will undergo the same training, which lasts around 12 to 15 weeks. This is to ensure that there will be a “consistent, high quality service standard”, he said.
SMRT and SBS Transit bus drivers who would have a choice to make — whether to cross over to Tower Transit — in the coming months expressed concerns such as whether benefits tied to their years of service would be affected, should they join the foreign operator.
A bus driver with 32 years of experience, who gave his name only as Mr Lee, said: “I have worked here for a long time, I just worry that if they move me over to (Tower Transit) ... all benefits might be gone.”
Other bus drivers TODAY spoke to said they had many questions and were hoping for more details to emerge in the coming weeks.
Under guidelines issued by the Public Transport Tripartite Committee, incoming operators will have to offer affected employees a job and must offer employment terms that at least match what employees were enjoying before the transition. Affected staff must also be allowed to choose whether they wish to join the new operator or be redeployed by their current employer.
In terms of recognising the length of service, a driver who served the outgoing operator for 20 years, for example, should be given entitlements and benefits based on his 20 years of service.
Mr Balkin said his firm has held a “really positive meeting” with the National Transport Workers’ Union. “We are looking at ways of improving the employment remuneration with the Singapore drivers in our business.”
