Log in
Search
Bus driver Eirik Fjerdingøy in Namsskogan in Trøndelag is confident in his case.
– We would not have had any success at all if we had not had help from Ole. There is no goodwill from the employer, and everything has been muffled when we try to make demands or suggestions.
Together with his colleagues Knut Jostein Nyeng and Petter Mathisen, he has received good and literally valuable help from YTF's department manager in the area, Ole Moen.
After several meetings with the employer and a careful review of payslips over four years, the three drivers have been granted a salary claim of over 200,000 kroner.
The errors were related to missing seniority allowance, missing module allowance, too low a split shift allowance, missing inconvenience allowance and missing allowance for professional certificates. The drivers are employed by the company Trones Persontransport, a subcontractor to Vy Buss in Trøndelag.
– At Easter in 2025, Erik asked me what the rules for seniority actually are, says Ole Moen.
He is the head of YTF's Trøndelag Nord department (17). When Moen met Fjerdingøy in connection with a course, the two drivers discussed the rules for calculating seniority.
– Eirik thinks it was wrong that he shouldn't be paid for the experience he had after all those years as a truck driver, says Moen.
When hired, Fjerdingøy had stated that he had been driving trucks for 25 years, but that he had little experience in buses. The manager of Trones Persontransport responded that the trucking experience was not considered valid seniority and Fjerdingøy was placed on the minimum wage rate in the bus industry agreement.
– That was a mistake. The bus industry agreement is clear that driving with a truck should be fully credited, says Moen.
The error meant that Fjerdingøy was paid 11 kroner too little every hour for the first three years of his employment, but the error did not stop there.
– When I started looking at Eirik's payslips, I saw that he had not received any pay for his vocational certificate or in-house courses.
According to the Bus Industry Agreement, drivers will receive an additional 9 kroner per hour after they have taken a course in professional driver competence (YSK) and passed the subsequent test. Furthermore, drivers will also receive an additional 3 kroner per hour for in-house courses.
Fjerdingøy had not been offered an in-house course, nor was he aware of the salary increases the course would trigger.
According to the Bus Industry Agreement, the employer must inform employees in writing about the opportunity to take the continuing education test (YKB) and the in-house module. This must happen at least twice per year.
– Here we had a clear case that the employer had not met the requirements of the Bus Industry Agreement, says Moen.
According to the statute of limitations, a claim for unpaid wages can normally be filed for up to three years. However, in this case, the requirements that the client AtB places on the operators and their subcontractors were decisive.
AtB's agreements with the operators, such as Vy, Tide and Boreal, stipulate that the nationwide collective agreement shall be followed. The agreement also applies to the operators' subcontractors.
It further states that any breach of the agreement between the operator and AtB may result in AtB withholding an amount equivalent to double what the operator or subcontractor may have earned from the breach of agreement. This meant that AtB in this case could have withheld an amount equivalent to at least double what Trones Persontransport had saved by not paying the supplements for seniority, split shifts, inconvenient working hours, passing the YSK/YKB or the modules.
– Finally, I calculated how much Trones Persontransport had missed in salary. There was a lack of seniority bonus from the start of the employment relationship and there was a lack of bonus for passing the YSK for 3.5 years. In addition, I assumed that Eirik should have been offered an in-house course within a certain time, and that he had therefore lost out on that too.
In total, the claim amounted to over 150,000 kroner.
WITHOUT THE UNIFORM: In addition to his job as a bus driver, Eirik Fjerdingøy runs a farm in Trones in the municipality of Namsskogan.
In working on the claim, Moen also checked the salary payments to Fjerdingøy's colleagues, Knut Jostein Nyeng and Petter Mathisen. Here too, it turned out that payments were missing. Nyeng was credited with 20,000 kroner and Mathisen with 30,000 kroner.
After a period of dialogue, the management of Trones Persontransport chose to accept the claim in full. The three drivers were also paid late payment interest for the missing wages. The payments were based on the claim that Moen had calculated for the three drivers.
– It was a big calculation, and it took a few hours to go through all the numbers and calculate exactly how much the company owed the drivers, says Moen.
He believes there are more bus drivers who may be subject to the same error as the three drivers from Namsskogan.
Chairman of the board Kristin Smestad of Trones Persontransport believes that the criticism of lack of goodwill is unfair.
– We have always tried to do what is right, so I think it is unfair. We have tried to sort this out ever since we were made aware that this was wrong. And we have now paid back the missing supplements. We apologize that this was a mistake, says Smestad, adding that the company has also paid back supplements that go back more than three years.
– These are requirements that are actually outdated, but we want to do things by the book – so it was a point for us to pay this back as well.
Smestad owns and runs the small transport company together with his partner, Eivind Trones. The latter has been driving buses since 1990 and has also been an employer and taxi operator since the early 2000s. For many years, the business was organized as a sole proprietorship, but the couple established an AS when the company entered into an agreement with Vy Buss in 2021.
– When we got the offer, I thought there would probably be a bit more work. But if I had known how demanding it would be, I would never have said yes, says Smestad.
To handle the back payment of the drivers' salaries, the couple has cut their own salary and postponed the payment of their vacation pay.
– It is very stressful and really mentally tough to be in this. It is challenging financially, and some nights I have been so worried that it has been difficult to sleep. We have had a lot of sick leave among the drivers, and we are fined if we are unable to complete the routes. So there is a lot of pressure. The tendering regime can be deadly for small companies.
It was a big calculation, and it took a few hours to go through all the numbers and figure out exactly how much the company owed the drivers.
Ole Moen, head of YTF's department 17
– Do you feel that you received sufficient information from Vy Buss when you entered into the agreement?
– We have received information, and we have a person we can contact if we have questions, but it can still be difficult. It is not always that you know what you do not know. There are many details in the Bus Industry Agreement that can be difficult to find out, says Smestad, mentioning the requirement for internal courses as an example.
There is currently no description or requirement for what the internal courses should contain.
– I am not an economist, and there is nowhere I can look up to get details of the Bus Industry Agreement explained. We have done the best we can, but it is not just easy, says Smestad.
