Bus Workers Are Driving the Fight for Fair Pay
After bus workers kept the country moving during Covid, Arriva is now trying to slap hundreds of them in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire with a real-terms pay cut. The workers are having none of it.
Arriva bus drivers and Unite the union members outside Watford Junction on 6 September. (Unite London and Eastern / Twitter)
Workers in Britain have experienced the longest period of wage stagnation since the 1800s, and now face further real-terms pay cuts amid the worst squeeze on living standards since the 1950s. Two-thirds of adults in poverty are now in a working household. For Arriva bus drivers like Dan*, from Hertfordshire, things have never been this bad.
‘The cost of fuel has doubled. You have to do extra shifts just to break even. We are working to live,’ he says, explaining how the cost of living crisis coupled with low wages are causing him and his family significant hardship.
‘I used to be able to give my kids a bit of money here and there. Not anymore. I’ve had to cut back on trying to give them a leg up. Everything is going up.’ Everything, that is, except wages. It’s a familiar story among many low-paid workers in Britain, and the Arriva bus strikes taking place in bus depots across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire are the latest in a wave of industrial action being taken by desperate workers struggling to make ends meet.
Arriva is offering drivers, admin staff, engineers, cleaners, and shunters pay rises of between four percent and six percent. With the real rate of inflation, RPI, running at 12.3 percent, bus drivers like Dan say this amounts to nothing more than a real-terms pay cut.
‘I was disgusted,’ says Dan. ‘They wanted us to subsidise our own pay rise by taking things off us, and they wanted to make our shifts longer.’
Around 900 Arriva bus workers took forty-eight hours of strike action from Monday 5 September over the measly pay offer—the biggest bus dispute in the region for decades. A further contention in the dispute is that the pay offer has strings attached that will actually drive down wages even further. The pay offer is tied to a reduction of 16.6 percent in overtime rates. The company also want to end paid time for compulsory duties outside of driving, such as travelling to a bus stop or to pick up a bus mid-route.
Sam*, a local bus driver in Luton, tells Tribune ‘It takes approximately eight minutes to walk to take over a bus. Do that multiple times during a shift and it is over thirty minutes unpaid. Not good enough! We are working for nothing.’
Mark*, a bus driver in Buckinghamshire, says he relies on overtime to ‘ease the purse strings,’ particularly as energy bills soar and inflation goes through the roof. ‘If these conditions were to have been accepted, then I would have been accepting a daily pay loss but still having the cost of living to deal with,’ he tells Tribune.
‘We sign on in the morning and have to prepare ourselves. We have to do first-use checks for the vehicles to make sure they’re safe. And they don’t want to pay us for that anymore,’ says Dan.
An Overseas Operation
Arriva UK Bus operates nearly 6,000 buses in the country. In 2010, Arriva was taken over in 2010 by Deutsche Bahn, the German state-owned rail and transport company, effectively ensuring profits return made by British bus workers return directly to transport systems in Germany.
Since 2012, Arriva has paid £560 million from its UK operations to Deutsche Bahn. In the same ten-year period, Deutsche Bahn have paid £5 billion into the German government. As Unite regional organiser Jeff Hodges pointed out at a Luton Tribune Club meeting, ‘We’re not talking about a company struggling to make ends meet. We are talking about a cash rich company that refuses to pay their workers a decent wage while they’ll pay their shareholders in dividends at untold rates.’
In 2021, Arriva transported nearly eleven percent more passengers and helped the German company to significantly reduce its operating loss during the pandemic. The company benefited from a £2 billion Covid relief fund paid out by the government to 150 bus and light rail operators in England alone. As Arriva continues to profit from sky-high fares and funnels money made by workers out of the country, the proposed pay offer is an acute reminder that, despite bus drivers being vital to the company’s survival, they remain undervalued by the company.
The Final Straw
Sam is one of thousands of bus workers who were celebrated during lockdown for keeping the country in going in very difficult and often dangerous circumstances. He says the pay offer is particularly insulting to drivers who risked their lives during the pandemic.
‘No one expects a bus driver to go to work and die because of this nasty virus. When the company comes back to us and says you’re only worth two percent, it is awful. We’ve had brothers and sisters who’ve passed away—fifty-odd drivers who’ve passed away because they went to work.’
Due to the very nature of their work, bus drivers faced both a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 and greater financial hardship as a direct consequence, too. In the early stages of the pandemic, bus workers were three times more likely to die of Covid-19.
‘We worked through Covid-19. Put ourselves at risk. And they give us nothing,’ says Dan. ‘I noticed other companies gave their employees a bonus or extra days off. We got a 90p sandwich for Christmas. They don’t care about us. It’s all about money for Arriva.’
Anger among Arriva bus workers has been brewing for a very long time. Alongside the unsafe nature of their work, many have struggled to maintain a work-life balance. Punishing rosters without sufficient rest days have lead to stress and exhaustion and, for many bus workers, the insulting pay offer has been the final straw.
Colin*, an Arriva bus driver, says negotiations with Arriva management have been a key point of contention. After pay talks late August, Colin says he was told by one of the branch reps that they had reached an agreement on their recommended deal.
‘We were pleased that after waiting for a pay rise since January, we would finally be given an uplift in pay to help with the ongoing and increasing cost of living,’ he tells Tribune.
When representatives met with management for subsequent meetings to finalise a deal, Colin explains that the recommended pay offer was withdrawn and the management denied offering the deal, despite union reps offering evidence to the contrary. ‘The company offered parity for all drivers and then took it away and denied offering it, suggesting that our representatives were dishonest or stupid.’
One of the biggest issues in this dispute is the lack of parity when it comes to pay rates. In Luton, bus drivers start on £9.50 an hour and don’t reach the top rate of £13.67 until they’ve done the job for four years. In Hertfordshire, the top rate is lower, but bus drivers reach it in two years.
‘This is something we’re trying to align. The company have made this mess of pay rates over the past few years and we’re just trying to put it right,’ explains Jeff.
Colin notes that it’s not a great deal of money to close the gap. ‘Why should I drive a bus on a similar route to other routes,’ he asks, ‘but be paid lower hourly rates of pay?’
On the Picket Line
Over a hundred bus workers gathered outside Arriva’s bus depot in Luton on Monday morning, alongside dozens of the public cheering them on. Located on a busy stretch of a main road, honks in solidarity from passing motorists were frequent. It is no surprise that many passing HGV drivers, paramedics, and refuse drivers were sharing their support; they themselves are fighting for better pay and conditions in their own respective sectors.
Picket-line pakoras were provided by a local food van and Reggae music played from a speaker, followed by some Punjabi music, reflecting the diversity of the workers taking strike action. They remain united in their determination to demand better.
The mood is one of defiance and support for striking bus workers can be heard far and wide. I happen to live a stone’s throw away from the picket line, and as I write this piece from my home, I hear a beep followed by a cheer every few minutes.
The show of solidarity from the local community who stand in solidarity with bus workers on the picket line has lifted the mood of those taking industrial action.
‘Hearing the support from complete strangers who join us on the picket line, I’m humbled—absolutely humbled!’ says Sam.
Arriva bus drivers across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire have announced further strike action on 16, 20, and 30 September, but if the strength of support on the picket line is anything to go by, this dispute could end a lot sooner.
As Sam says, ‘The solidarity shown among the depots has been amazing, and I hope bus workers can see how strong the union can be when we all stand united.’