Arriva yesterday started making up for the issues raised by its employees over problems with their salaries and the company issued cheques for the balance owed, a GWU officer said.

The GWU Officer explained that whilst the employees were not given a copy of the collective agreement in question, none the less they highlights of the agreement were explained to them. The Union held that it was the company’s duty to give a copy of the agreement to its employees.

Contrary to what was alleged in the local media, Arriva drivers are working less hours than they did prior to the agreement, leading to a raise in their earnings. Although a number of drivers did in fact resign from the GWU, most of these have taken up their membership again.

An Arriva representative told the media that the main reason for the salary descrepancies was due to the employees not being aware of collective agreement details as agreed with the GWU.

A statement issued by the Union earlier this week held that if the transport operator continues to regularly underpay the drivers, the union will resort to taking action. “Although there were indeed some singular mistakes, this was not the norm and any issues were ironed out with each employee during personal and individual meetings,” the Arriva representative explained.

The company did however owe up to mistake in a timesheet which read 77hours however the employee was paid for 7 hours. “This was due to a genuine human error,” Arriva held.