Workers' Notes: London strikes!

 by New Worker correspondent

At Heathrow Airport Easter is being marked by 10 days of strike action by over 1,400 security officers. The strike went ahead after unsuccessful pay talks. At present, the average salary of a Heathrow security guard, working endless shifts, is £30,000, of which £26,000 is the basic after three years experience, with a £4,000 shift allowance. Unite the union reckons that in real-terms this is 24 per cent less than in 2017. Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) refused to substantially improve its pay offer and only offered a lump sum payment as an addition to the current offer.
    At the same time, HAL CEO John Holland-Kaye had an 88 per cent pay rise, which he surely deserved as in 2020 he was only on £800,000 and desperately needed a more reasonable £1.5 million. He had a hard time during the pandemic when he was energetically firing and rehiring its entire workforce, resulting in most workers suffering serious pay cuts.
    This sum he earned because of the huge £2.1 billion in dividends he paid out to such deserving cases as Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial, the Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and the Qatar Investment Authority.
    Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said: “Heathrow can afford to pay a decent pay rise to its workers. This is a wealthy company which is about to return to bumper profits. In recent years it’s approved an astronomical rise in salary for its CEO and paid out dividends to shareholders worth billions. Yet somehow Heathrow executives seem to think it’s acceptable to offer what amounts to a real-terms pay cut to its security guards and ground staff who are already on poverty pay.”
    Wayne King, a regional co-ordinating officer, added that: “Heathrow Airport has thrown away the opportunity to avoid strikes. Unite went into today’s meeting looking for an offer our members could accept. Unfortunately it seems HAL went in with no intention of avoiding industrial action.”
    The strikes affects Terminal Five, which is British Airways private terminal, and the security guards, who are responsible for checking all cargo.

Outsourcing Battles

The pay struggle continues, meanwhile, for ‘outsourced’ workers. On London’s Docklands Light Railway (DLR), contracted-out staff working for ISS and belonging to transport union RMT walked out on 48-hours strike last weekend.
    The workers involved in revenue protection, cleaning and security have rejected a pathetic 1.8 per cent pay offer, much lower than the rate for directly employed Transport for London (TfL) staff who perform equivalent roles. Despite promises from London Mayor Sadiq Khan, ISS staff have also not secured free travel, which other TfL workers have.
    RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said: “ISS are a multimillion-pound company whose arrogance knows no bounds. They already pay staff poorly and with inflation rapidly increasing an offer of 1.8 per cent shows they do not care one jot for their staff.”
    “RMT will continue their campaign for pay justice for these workers who are some of the most exploited in the transport system…ultimately Mayor Sadiq Khan needs to end the injustice of exploitation of contracted-out staff by bringing these workers back in house as soon as possible.”
    Also in London, outsourced cleaners at the Great Ormond Street Hospital For Children (GOSH) are undertaking a collective legal action against outsourcing, claiming compensation for past injustices.
    The court case by 80 largely migrant workers was brought by the small street union United Voices of the World (UVW), which points out that for decades the cleaners were outsourced on lesser terms and conditions than other directly employed GOSH workers. This led to a dispute between UVW and GOSH at the start of the pandemic that saw UVW force the hospital to abandon its cleaning private contractor and employ the workers directly as NHS employees. The recently concluded UVW action, if successful, could net each claimant between £80,000–£190,000. A decision is expected later this month. UVW say it is similar to a case it brought against the Royal Parks in late 2021, when outsourced Royal Park attendants at won an Employment Tribunal case that ruled their lower pay was unlawful because it amounted to indirect race discrimination. This case was contested by the Government who feared it setting a bad example.
    Not far from GOSH, in Oxford Street, London’s longest shopping street, outsourced cleaners organised by another small union, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), took over the offices of mobile phone company Vodafone early last month.
    They are employed by subcontractor Mitie, whose low wages are matched by overwork, a lack of company sick pay, and victimisation for those who complain.
    Some cleaners faced disciplinary action from Mitie for turning down extra responsibilities beyond their job description after many redundancies of catering staff were made during the pandemic. Mitie did well from Covid, with profits rising 187 per cent to £167 million on the back of short-term Covid-related contracts.
    Last year cleaners won the London Living Wage at Vodafone buildings nationally and forced them to hire new staff, which partly reduced overwork.
    An eight-year veteran of cleaning the Vodafone HQ said: “I risked my life cleaning throughout the pandemic for £8.93 an hour, and had to take 10 days off without proper sick pay when I got COVID‑19. We need better sick pay. We need management to replace cleaners who leave or take holidays, so we’re not faced with excessive workloads. It's time for fewer meetings and more action from both Mitie and Vodafone.”
    IWGB General Secretary Henry Chango Lopez attacked Vodafone because: “Pretending concern for employee welfare whilst exploiting their outsourced migrant workers for poverty pay is shameless hypocrisy. They make billions in profit but deny their cleaners’ calls for basic rights like a proper sick pay. Mitie management have attempted to shut down the workers fighting back by victimising them and threatening them with blacklisting, but we will campaign alongside them until they get justice.”

Off the Rails

by New Worker correspondent

Last week Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London announced that another 800 sub-contracted cleaners working on Transport for London sites would become entitled to free transport on TfL services. They work on MTR Crossrail and on London Overground operations. They now join 5,000 sub-contracted cleaners at TfL who have secured the same rights. These came only after long struggles.
    Given the high bus and tube fares in London, this is a major development for low paid workers who often need to live long distances from their workplaces.
    When London’s bus services were privatised in 1994-5 this move brought considerable hardship to bus drivers as many had taken advantage of free public transport offered by the then London Transport to live in John Betjeman’s Metroland and take a free tube to their central London depot. Having lost their status they had to stump for long journeys to work, a wrong that still grates.
    But to return to the present RMT general secretary Mick Lynch welcomed the move saying: “This is another step in the right direction by the Mayor of London and we’re calling on him to extend it to all TfL sub-contracted workers. Sadiq Khan’s welcome action stands in stark contrast to the Tories who earlier in the week forced legislation through the House of Commons that would remove these workers’ right to strike. Instead of attacking cleaners, the Tories should be following the Mayor’s lead and ensuring all rail cleaners have free travel”.
    He added that: “The Mayor needs to do more too. Labour nationally has committed to oversee the biggest wave of insourcing of public services for a generation when it’s elected. London’s Mayor is already in power, so we’ll be stepping up our campaign for Sadiq to tackle the scourge of outsourcing in TfL, starting by bringing London’s Underground cleaners in-house.” Such a touching faith in the Labour Party.
    RMT has launched a petition making just such demands: this can be found at: https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/bring-london-s-tube-cleaners-in-house.
    This has been a long running dispute. Last June RMT denounced TfL officials for renewing a £450 million contract in March in secret using Chair’s Action between meetings. When it was belatedly discovered Mick Lynch attacked the decision which he said: “This is deeply shocking and raises serious questions about TfL officials and the functioning of the Board. Who is running TfL?” he asked: “The democratically elected Mayor who is chair of TfL or the Commissioner of TFL who the Mayor appoints? It appears to us that unelected officers are now in charge of the capital’s transport system”.
    Last Friday night maintenance workers on the new Elizabeth Line held a 24 hour strike action. Rail for London Infrastructure which employs the workers, offered four per cent but workers at MTR – the outsourced part of the Elizabeth Line – received an 8.2 per cent increase this year and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) staff got almost ten per cent. Mick said: “It cannot be right that maintenance staff doing essential work keeping the Elizabeth Line running are being short-changed. The employer must make a decent offer on pay that reflects the vital work our members perform in order to avoid future strike action.”
    However TSSA members also involved in the dispute over pay and pensions suspended striking on the same day saying “Discussions with the company have been significant and serious” but warning that: “The company should take note however, that we reserve the right to reissue our notice to take action at any time with 14 days’ notice.”

Britain is Broken!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined thousands of demonstrators demanding an end to austerity in Trafalgar Square on Saturday. Called by the People’s Assembly, and supported by a number of trade unions, the protest began with a march through central London that ended in a rally addressed by speakers including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and RMT general secretary Mick Lynch. Corbyn said the government would be forced to listen to protesters calling for improved pay and workers’ rights. “The government is of course eventually forced to listen, as are the rail companies, therefore they have reopened negotiations with the RMT. The people out here are very determined. They’re not going to see people with disabilities discriminated against, they’re not going to see growing impoverishment in our society”.

Enough is Enough!

Mick Lynch at the Grand

by New Worker correspondent

Mick Lynch got a rousing welcome at the ‘Enough Is Enough’ rally at the Clapham Grand in Battersea, south London last week. The venerable Grand, a historic venue outside Clapham Junction station that opened as a music hall in 1900, was once able to take a 3,000 strong audience. Later conversions to a cinema and a bingo hall as well as modern health and safety regulations has cut that capacity by almost two-thirds. But the now restored theatre was packed to the gills for the London launch of the campaign that seeks to lead the fight-back against cost of living hikes not seen for a generation.
    Well over a thousand people had come to hear the RMT transport union leader speak about the wave of strikes sweeping the country and the growing resistance to the austerity regime. Hundreds more were left outside the doors as the hall had reached its current 1,250 capacity.
    Lynch said the Enough Is Enough campaign “never started off as a political movement“ but the mood of the country has now made it one. The Tories had “assumed that our members and all workers wouldn’t fight for our rights, but they were wrong”.
    “Unions must lead, we can’t wait for the politicians. We need to get out into the communities and the former red wall to assist them to campaign. We need to show them how to organise. Our job as activists and trade unionists is to lift them, give them hope and get them out on the streets.
    “Join a union and join a campaign. Move the workers into campaigning and convert it into a wave of solidarity and industrial action across Britain.”
    Lynch urged “every union, community organisation, every grass-roots organisations — whatever it is — to fight back against this austerity”, adding that since this current administration “act in their class interests, it’s time to act in our class interests”.
    His words were echoed by Eddie Dempsey, another senior RMT full-timer, Zarah Sultana the campaigning Labour MP for Coventry South, and Michael Rosen, the poet and writer who is an outspoken supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.
    Enough is Enough was founded by trade unions and community organisations determined to push back against the misery forced on millions by rising bills, low wages, food poverty, shoddy housing – and a society run only for a wealthy elite.
    The campaign is calling for a rise in the national minimum wage, a path to £15 an hour, a real public sector pay rise and an increase in pensions and benefits. It wants a return to the pre-April energy price cap of £1,277 per year; the nationalisation of the energy companies and increasing investment in renewable energies.
    By reinstating the £20-a-week universal credit uplift, and universal free school meals, along with a new independent regulatory body to hold the government to account, as well as a wealth tax, the campaign hopes to end food poverty too – while providing 100,000 council homes a year.

RMT shuts down Tube

by New Worker correspondent

Some 4,000 striking station and revenue control staff shut down London Underground on Monday in a show of strength to oppose pension attacks and job cuts.
    Trains remained in depots across the network as picket lines spread across the combine despite heavy rain across the capital.
    600 station staff jobs will be lost if TfL (Transport for London) plans go through and RMT members face huge detrimental changes to their pensions and working conditions.
    RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "I congratulate our station grade and revenue control staff members on London Underground for taking strike action in defence of their pensions and jobs.
    "The effectiveness and industrial power of these members cannot be underestimated. TfL, London Underground Limited (LUL) and the Mayor of London have had ample opportunity to negotiate with the union properly to avert this strike action today.
    "Their intransigence and stubbornness have left RMT members no choice but to act decisively. We will not rest until we have a just settlement to this dispute and we urge the Mayor to stand up to the Tory government who are cutting funding to TfL rather than try to pick a fight with tube workers."

Save our Ferries!

by New Worker correspondent

Several hundred P&O Ferries workers and supporters held a protest outside DP World’s London offices last week before marching to a rally outside Parliament. The rally was called by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) following the mass sacking of ferry staff on 17th March by DP World, who are the owners of P&O Ferries.
    DP World, halted all crossing in the four routes it operates: Dover to Calais; Hull to Rotterdam; Liverpool to Dublin; and Cairnryan, Scotland, to Larne, Northern Ireland after some 800 crew members were sacked on the spot to make way for scab labour recruited in Britain, the Philippines and India to do their work on bread-line wages.
    The Rail, Maritime and Transport union, Nautilus International and the Labour Party called the protests held in London and other parts of the country following appeals to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to either force DP World to back off or nationalise the company— something the government, needless to say, has ruled out altogether.
    Now RMT has slammed what it described as a "disgusting statement" from P&O Ferries trying to justify one of the most shameful acts by any employer in recent history
    Sacked seafarers have been basically told that if they don’t sign up to be gagged by a non-disclosure agreement they will not only lose their jobs – they will lose money as well. This is from an organisation which has received millions from the taxpayer to support furlough payments and whose parent company DP World paid out vast sums in dividends last year
    General Secretary Mick Lynch said: "These are the actions of a bully trying to maximise profits by sacking workers and replacing them with agency staff below the minimum wage.
    "The detail of what the company are imposing is not new. The 2.5 weeks is what we have negotiated in the past with P&O.
    "The pay in lieu of notice is not compensation, it is just a payment staff are contractually entitled to as there was no notice given.
    "The way that the package has been structured is pure blackmail and threats– that if staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them.
    "The actions of P&O demonstrate the weakness of employment law and protections in the UK. P&O have flagrantly breached the law and abandoned any standards of workplace decency. They have ripped away the jobs, careers and pensions of our members and thrown the on the dole with the threat that if they do not sign up and give away their rights they will lose many thousands of pounds in payments.
    "This is totally unacceptable and RMT will continue to campaign for our members to be reinstated at P&O and for better employment laws to protect all British workers.‎"

London’s transport

NSSN support on the picket line

by New Worker correspondent

One area where the class struggle will be fought out is on the railways up and down the country, and perhaps most sharply, below ground in London. Rail unions have united in condemnation of the actions of the Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL), which they say will lead to a loss of 600 Underground station jobs.
   On the London Underground (LU) workers have already taken strike action against detrimental changes to the Night Tube driver grade.
Transport for London (TfL) wants to rip up existing agreements and force drivers to do more Night Tube shifts, which RMT points out will ruin drivers’ work–life balance.
   The action caused major disruption on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. Whilst workers on only five tube lines took action, delays hit other lines as well, and members of the other train drivers’ union, ASLEF, refused to cross the picket line despite their union leaders accepting TfL’s proposals. In addition, some other RMT members not directly affected by the plans also struck in solidarity.
   The plans to cut 600 station staff are based on the assumption that people all use contactless tickets, which is nonsense given the large number of visitors needing to be told how to get from Hamleys to Harrods.
   Meanwhile, there’s more trouble at the Woolwich ferry. There has been a ferry crossing at Woolwich on the lower Thames since the 14th Century, but it sometimes seems as though industrial disputes have been going on for almost as long.
   In 2019, workers went on strike seeking a pay rise and improved safety after the new operators cut staff numbers and set new shift patterns after acquiring new ships. The following year they won good deal, securing 100 per cent furlough pay from then private operator Briggs Marine Contractors.
   Now TfL run the service things have got worse rather than better. Just before Christmas seven workers, including two Unite reps, were suspended without reason.
   Despite having recently acquired new ships they were laid up over the festive season. This postponed a planned strike over pay.
   Unite’s General Secretary, Sharon Graham, demanded: “The suspension of our seven members, including two of our reps, needs to be rescinded immediately. We won’t allow TfL management to get away with ‘declaring war’ on Unite and its members. The full weight of the union will be mobilised in support of them,” accusing TfL of “a huge and unprovoked escalation.”
   Unite regional officer Onay Kasab deplored the fact that: “TfL continues to spend excessive sums on agency staff, while claiming it is in financial trouble – this is money that could go towards paying our 58 members a decent wage as the RPI rate of inflation soars to 7.1 per cent.”

Deaths at Work

By New Worker correspondent

Last week saw the release of figures from the Office of National Statistics relating to Covid-19 fatalities. These, said transport union RMT showed that male bus and coach drivers and taxi drivers are two of the occupational groups with the highest rates of Covid-19 deaths.
     Mick Cash, the union’s departing General Secretary said: “Bus workers and taxi drivers have kept vital connections running throughout the pandemic for other key workers and essential travellers, and we need an industry-wide approach which ensures their safety and takes action to address the threats from the new Covid variant.
     “RMT is reiterating its calls for the Government to ensure that transport workers, are classified as a priority group for Covid-19 vaccination. This will save lives and maintain the resilience of the UK’s transport networks.”
     With regard to the situation on the rails the union also warns that “a complacent and callous approach to the increased threat from Covid-19 is leading to a surge in deaths and illness of transport workers”.
     Members report that since November the number of deaths and illnesses due to coronavirus amongst rail workers have at least doubled. At the same time Department for Transport figures also show that rail use is three times higher when compared to the last national lockdown.
    The union blames a “creeping complacency and a callous refusal by transport bosses to mandate a nationwide overhaul of risk assessments to take into account the heightened risk of the new virus has caused the surge”.
     Mick Cash deplored the Government’s laxity in dealing with “a lethal cocktail threatening rail workers … But instead of responding to our call for a urgent national review of all risk assessments we are being told its business as usual – this is as callous as it is complacent.
    “We are advising our members of their right to stop working if their safety is threatened and I will be seeking an urgent meeting with Grant Shapps asking that he intervenes to take speedy action to address the new threat and also to prioritise transport workers for the vaccine”.
     At one bus depot, that of Bannockburn First Bus, operations are still ongoing and bosses are only reducing services despite having 28 positive cases of Covid-19 which represents over half the workforce at the depot.
     Graeme Turnbull, a Unite industrial officer, demanding the temporary closure of the depot saying: “This is a timely reminder of the considerable risk and sacrifice that our members and all transport workers undertake on a daily basis to ensure key workers and our communities function in these challenging times. It is also vitally important that the company conducts an immediate investigation to understand how the virus has been able to take hold and spread across the workforce.”

Unfair Fares

 by New Worker correspondent

The Government have come up with another wheeze to get people into their cars. It plans to put up the price of train season tickets. According to ancient tradition, the annual January increase depends on the July inflation figure. This year, because of an unexpected jump in the July figure, they will be going up 1.6 per cent.
    This will apply to nearly all regulated fares in Scotland, and all regulated fares in England and Wales, as well as most off-peak long-distance fares.
    The Department for Transport said they are considering other options, including introducing flexible tickets. Rail minister Chris Haton-Harris said: “We expect any rail fare rise to be the lowest in four years come January and any increase will go straight to ensuring crucial investment in our railways.”
    Londoners will suffer most, with a 2.6 per cent rise due to the funding agreement between the government and City Hall after the coronavirus crisis. RMT instead demanded a five per cent cut fares. This could easily be achieved by redirecting funds paid to private operators since the pandemic.
    Transport Focus, a passenger watchdog, has joined forces with RMT to call for the introduction of a new season ticket to reflect current working patterns and to make travel more affordable for part-time commuters. Labour called for a re-nationalisation of the rail network and pointed out that that fares have risen by 42 per cent in real terms in the last decade.
    Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) General Secretary Manuel Cortes, supporting the call for a freeze, said: “There should be no planned increase in rail fares, doing so in the middle of a health emergency and emerging economic crisis will help no one.
    “Since the pandemic hit our shores, our railways have kept key workers and vital supplies moving. There can be no doubt how vital our rail infrastructure is for the wellbeing of our nation and for our efforts to decarbonise our economy.
    “This is the moment for Government to come clean and tell us that not only will there be no increase in fares but that they are taking our railways back into public ownership.
    “We simply must get more people to use our railways for leisure travel as there is very likely to be a drop in commuter numbers as we feel the bite of what is expected to be a very deep recession and also increased homeworking taking hold.
    “This means putting in place a new affordable and more flexible fare structure which serves the needs of changing working patterns and which strongly promotes people using our railways for leisure purposes.”

On the Tube

By New Worker correspondent

Britain’s bosses and unions are increasingly at war over a possible return to work. It also seems that a considerable number of the public are eager to get their teeth into health-giving McDonald’s burgers once again. Some bosses, such as the notorious Sports Direct, were even trying to force workers furloughed at taxpayers’ expense to work one day a week in the warehouses.

      The trinity of rail unions, ASLEF, RMT and TSSA, have denounced plans to run more trains in a letter to the Prime Minister and leaders of the devolved assemblies. The unions point out that they have worked during the crisis to ensure key workers are able to get to work and to move essential medical and food supplies. They demand that company profits must not come before people’s lives however, and the lockdown should not be lifted until it is safe to do so.

In particular, they warn “that attempts by operators to increase service levels sends out a mixed message that it is okay to travel by train – despite official advice suggesting otherwise” will lead “to the public flouting the rules on travel and work”. They also note that there is no agreement on actually how services can be increased whilst protecting workers and passengers, warning: “We will not accept new working patterns that put the lives of railway workers and passengers at risk.”

A leaked report from Transport for London (TfL) shows that if social distancing were to be imposed on the London Underground system it could only carry 15 per cent of its capacity. This means that even with a 100 per cent service, only 50,000 passengers could board every 15 minutes, compared with 325,000 normally boarding every 15 minutes at rush hour peak prior to lockdown. At present, the reduced service can carry 30,000 passengers boarding every quarter of an hour.

Unsurprisingly, TfL said: “Whatever happens over the coming weeks and months, everyone who can work from home must continue to do so for some time yet. Our intention is to progressively build up service levels, but it is clear life simply won’t be returning to what it was before.”

Obviously this will apply not just to the London tube but to buses and trains across the country, meaning that few people will be able to travel any distance to work. RMT’s General Secretary Mick Cash commented: “The report leaked this morning to the BBC exposing the impact on passenger numbers of maintaining Government social distancing guidelines on the tube is a wake-up call to all those tub-thumping for a jacking up of transport services from May 18th without properly assessing the consequences.”

Also on the London tube, cleaners employed by cleaning contractor ABM are being treated as second-class citizens by being denied staff travel cards that allow travel across the TfL network despite other tube workers receiving this benefit, according to their union, RMT. It also points out that furloughed cleaners are also only receiving 80 per cent of their pay whilst other Tube staff are receiving 100 per cent.

     In addition to refusing to give the cleaners staff travel cards, TfL refers to them as “non-core”. After hearing the Mayor of London praise the cleaners to the sky, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: “The hypocrisy towards tube cleaners is breath-taking. On the one hand they are told by the Mayor and others they are doing an amazing job and they’re vital to the fight against coronavirus, then in the same breath they’re told you can’t have all the same basic conditions of employment as other tube staff, not even free tube travel”...

 ...and On the Buses

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he wants more buses running, but Unite the Union demands that should not be before certain conditions such as risk assessments are undertaken and fully applied and social distancing measures to protect drivers are preserved. In particular, Unite demands that drivers’ protective screens are sealed, seats around the driver cordoned off and non-cash payments implemented. Restrictions on overloading will need to be introduced.

Unite assistant general secretary Diana Holland said: “The increase in services must be underpinned by safety and maintaining the confidence of bus workers and passengers at all times. Unite is in regular discussions with the government on these issues.

“It must also be recognised that a considerable number of drivers cannot currently work and that this should not result in the remaining drivers being required to undertake excessive hours, which risk their health and safety.”

Unite also represents the taxi trade, so she added that: “The government should remember and fully utilise taxis in the return to work. Purpose-built hackney carriages are designed for social distancing and they should play a full role in helping workers to return to work.”

One branch of London buses where Unite unsuccessfully demanded suspension of services after the death of a driver is the Dial-a-Ride service for elderly and disabled residents who have mobility issues and who cannot otherwise use public transport. This call was made in the aftermath of the death of a driver, Patrick David, who died after 17 years service.

At present, such buses carry only one passenger per vehicle at any one time and drivers are now being provided with sufficient PPE [personal protective equipment] for each customer. But as drivers also help passengers onto vehicles, fasten them in, and help them in and out of their home, it is impossible for social distancing to be achieved at all times.

In place of the service, Unite is calling on TfL to ensure that the elderly and disabled service users are supported through the many community initiatives that deliver food and medicines to vulnerable people during this crisis.

Speaking of the suspension demand, Unite regional officer Simon McCartney said: “This was a very difficult call for our members to make as many of them have dedicated their lives to working for Dial-a-Ride and they appreciate the service is a lifeline for many of its users.

“Once the service is suspended, Unite is committed to working with TfL to introduce measures to get it up and operating again as quickly as possible.”

On the Buses

by New Worker correspondent

In London, sick pay from day one for the capital’s 20,000 bus men and women has been secured by their union, Unite.

This victory only came after intense pressure on bus operators, Transport for London (TfL), the London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the national government for better protection from COVID-19 for bus workers.

Over 21 London transport workers have died as a result of the virus, 15 of them bus workers. Some bus workers may have felt that they had to come to work when exhibiting signs of having caught the disease because of the lack of company sick pay.

Unite says that securing company sick pay from day one, regardless of length of service, means that bus workers fearful of having contracted the illness can now stay home safe in the knowledge that they will not be plunged into immediate hardship.

A regional officer for the union, John Murphy, said: “If they fall victim to this virus, bus workers need to be able to go sick from day one, to isolate themselves and to recuperate. They should not face a terrible choice between health and hardship. Keeping people at home when they are unwell has to be part of the effort to combat this virus. With this victory we can now concentrate our efforts to make people safer at work.”

He also said that the union is pressing “the best in PPE [personal protective equipment], masks and gloves to be available for bus workers and for the ending of rear door entry trials and for sealed front doors rolled out immediately across the capital’s buses”.

Across the country First South West Bus, which serves Bristol, Bath and Somerset, has come under attack from transport union RMT for what it calls the “most inept steps they have ever seen from an employer to protect their workers from COVID-19”.

After making strenuous representation to First South West Buses to fit suitable Perspex screens to their fleet of buses in order to provide a physical barrier between the driver and their passengers, all the company did was to screw what looked like a shower curtain to the ceiling of the drivers cab that hung well short of the bus wind-screen. It was so flimsy passengers could been pull it to one side in order to speak to the driver.

General Secretary Mick Cash said that: “Sainsbury’s are clearly far more concerned with the safety of their staff than you appear to be. Sainsbury's have within 24 hours sourced and fitted to multiple check outs high quality Perspex screens that give a good level of protection and they were fitted to check outs at a maximum time of 20 minutes per unit.”

The matter has been taken up with Public Health England (PHE), who are conducting a review of transport safety in relation to COVID-19.

He also noted that: “RMT also has other concerns about the bus industry including issues for engineering staff in depots and the facilities provided for employees in mess rooms. Many bus drivers on rural routes have no access to facilities to wash their hands – a key risk control measure as advised by Public Health England.”