LONDON Bus reps are meeting at the Unite union office at Woodberry, Manor Park, north London at 11am today, to plan coordinated action to fight threatened 40 per cent cuts.
Peter Cavanagh, the senior organiser on the buses for the Unite union, called the meeting by urgent email telling leading members and secretaries to gather on Thursday and for the message to be relayed to all members.
Cavanagh said the message was to be circulated as widely as possible.
The message said that the transport sector is threatened by 20 to 40 per cent cuts and he wants the meeting on Thursday to plan the course of action for the union, to be initiated by as early as September.
This shows the urgency of the situation.
Cavanagh referred to 20 to 40 per cent cuts in the transport sector, he did not specify just the bus sector.
He said the meeting is for planning the course of action for the union to be taking as soon as possible, as early as possible.
Transport on the buses is subsidised by nearly a million pounds.
Fuel duty paid by TfL to London Buses last year was £450,000.
The transport sector, in all major capitals is not a profit making sector.
When Thatcher privatised this sector everyone told her that she could not make a profit out of transport, and the Tories ended up subsidising it by £1 billion.
£450,000 is what TfL paid on fuel subsidies alone last year.
Forty per cent is a massive cut in a sector where tendering made competition very tough and where bus drivers’ wages are £2,000 lower than train drivers’, whereas it used to be equal before privatisation.
Now there are to be wage cuts.
Metroline is offering a zero per cent pay rise, when inflation is 5 per cent, East London Buses is asking the buses to reduce the drivers’ wages by an annual £2,000, Sovereign Buses is offering a pay rise of 1.3 per cent, below the inflation rate. This is before the cuts are being implemented.
‘The companies are positioning themselves in anticipation of what is to come.
Busworkers are determined to resist all moves to impose cuts in services and longer waiting times at bus stops onto the public, and wage cuts, job losses, harder working conditions, which will effect health and safety, onto the staff.
Cuts will involve the engineering departments and the managerial departments, which are also very important for health and safety.
Busworkers are looking to coordinate all transport sectors, trains, underground and all bus operators, breaking the anti-union laws if it is necessary to do so to co-ordinate the action.
While they are defending their sector, they should have a political aim and should not just be reacting to attacks.
The political aim must be the renationalising of all transport sectors.
During the struggle to defend jobs and conditions, management will target effective reps, like fellow Unite colleagues are experiencing at BA.
The union stance must be clear, that it will defend reps and will never do the completely immoral thing of leaving them to face the music alone.
This is the message that the union must put out from today’s meeting. There must be a clear assurance to reps that this union will defend all reps while they are fighting to defend the members.
This is the commitment that all members want to see given.
