Trade union Unite has told the Manx Independent it has concerns about the new terms offered to drivers to bolster Sunday services.

The union was responding to a story in the Examiner on January 21 which revealed new bus drivers will be employed on contracts committing them to work five days a week and ensures they can be rostered on a Sunday.

Currently, no bus drivers are obliged to work Sundays. Instead they are paid extra to work weekends with some long term staff being paid £20 an hour on weekends.

Retired general secretary Eric Holmes and his replacement Debbie Halsall have told of the ’concerns’ of their members about the story and the changes.

Some 50 drivers were offered a £25,000 lump sum to give up their old terms and condition or to resign last year.

Mr Holmes said: ’As far as the drivers were concerned, the story was regurgitated a second time. The previous one a few months back recruited three to five people I think who took that deal but most of them have now left.’

The move came as a surprise to the union as a new agreement was made only in November of last year for drivers with the now former director of public transport.

Mr Holmes said: ’During the period Ian Longworth was seconded out, Ian Bates and the bus drivers, through negotiations, came up with a new agreement.’

That agreement was signed on November 19, 2019. However since Mr Longworth returned to the role, new drivers will be given the new conditions and be required to work Sundays.

Mrs Halsall said bus drivers are ’totally unanimous’ in their agreement for working Sundays, but that they want the choice over which Sundays to work rather than being required to work them.

And aside from the one Sunday in 2019 when a number of services were dropped due to a lack of drivers, the union has rejected the suggestion that Sunday services need bolstering.

She said: ’As one driver put it, they’re working most Saturdays so aren’t getting much of a weekend with their family and kids.

’So the drivers like that choice and they don’t want to be forced to work Sundays.

’There has never been a problem with the coverage of these duties, even though it is a choice whether you work them or not.’

Mrs Halsall defended the money earned by drivers, which can range from £28,000 to £36,000 for drivers on the old terms.

Members have told her they regularly workg extra hours to cover routes but under the terms of their contracts, only earn the same hourly rate except at weekends.