The strikes set to shut down most London bus companies on 22 October were suspended following an injunction gained by TfL against the union.
There is talk of the strike being re-scheduled to 5 November, but the whole balloting process may have to be restarted.
The pretext seems to be that the union had failed in certain garages to display the results of the strike ballot and that the union’s membership records are not up to date.
This situation poses difficulties for drivers and the union. The pay settlement date was April, so drivers will be increasingly tempted to accept any offer just for the sake of getting the back pay.
The union has made significant steps forward to even get this far. Drivers in the Unite union at Arriva South voted by 86 percent to join the strike started in First, Metrobus and Metroline; drivers at East London Bus Company voted by 75 percent to strike. Where strikes have happened so far they have been solid and picket lines vibrant, turning out around a hundred drivers throughout the day.
But this dispute is not controlled by the members. Very few will know even as much as the bare details in this report. The culture of the union has to change. Drivers need to step up and form strike committees to oversee the dispute.
Legally the union may have to conduct postal ballots as the law demands, but it cannot do without mass member meetings to decide on a plan of action.
All garages should call emergency meetings, where drivers are given full reports on the dispute from across London and take stock of the general political situation and the economic crisis.
In the week the strike was due to take place Workers’ Climate Action activists spoke to maybe fifty drivers at Holloway garage, and there was a general consensus in favour of the union fighting for public ownership as a means of actually realising its demand of equal pay for all. Transport is a right and the working-class need to push for free public transport as our solution to poverty, congestion and climate change.
It is so important that rather than the union turning in on itself, ordinary members re-energise this strike, figuring out ways to make this dispute central to the fight of all the working-class people who travel on the buses every day.
