AROUND 50 Arriva bus drivers picketed the Stamford Hill garage yesterday morning, with a strong turnout at Wood Green as well.
Nick Leon, a Unite member at Stamford Hill who has driven for 27 years, told News Line: ‘My main issue is that the company Arriva say they will make the necessary changes but they never seem to do anything.
‘For example they keep on talking about how they do something about the heat we face when we’re driving, but then they wait and the weather changes and all their promises get shoved under the carpet.
‘Another issue is that the new drivers coming in don’t really know what the previous problems were and in many cases they are scared to say anything because Arriva or management say “you have only been here for ten minutes and you are out on the picket line”. They are really frightened of coming out in support on strike.’
Joseph Ratungo, a Unite member at the same garage, said: ‘They force us to drive a defective bus with problems like head lights, heating and deflated tyres.
‘All those small defects they don’t really look at and in the winter you’ve got a cold bus which means you feel the cold in your feet and in your head and then in some cases you might suffer illness such as a cold.’
Isaac Kasule, who has been driving buses since 1995, said: ‘We are forced to drive defective buses because of the fear of being reported and we feel that that is intimidation.
‘As a driver if I see a defect within a bus and I report it to the controller, in some cases the controller will come back and say that there is nothing wrong with the bus.
‘This means that I am then forced to drive the bus with the defects and if I refuse, then I will be reported to management as refusing to take the bus out.
‘It effectively means that because you are driving a bus with defects you are breaking health and safety laws.’
Celant J said: ‘We are fighting for better conditions, because most buses don’t have proper air conditioning for drivers and even for passengers.
‘When it goes up to 36 degrees with the sun shining in the cabin and when you open the side door the heat comes right through. It becomes unbearable.
‘Then we find it very difficult to concentrate with that type of heat and we don’t feel it safe to drive.
‘Management always say that they will fix the problem and do something about all this but we want to know when.’
At Wood Green, Noel Morgan said: ‘The buses need air conditioning in summer and heating in winter.
‘We were told from last year that the buses would be air conditioned. In some of the cases it was 40 degrees in summer and very cold in winter.’
Turker Pinar, another driver at the garage, said there was no heating in the cab in winter and that passengers, older people especially, were complaining of the cold.
The buses were not maintained, he said, and should be nationalised.
