The BBC reports that drivers at Leeds' biggest bus operator, First, are staging a second 24-hour strike. Unite members rejected a 3% pay offer tabled by First when talks were held with conciliatory service ACAS earlier this month.
Phil Brown, of Unite, said bus drivers had been "backed into a corner". "All our members are asking for is a decent pay rise," he said. "Colleagues in other parts of West Yorkshire are on over £2 more than us. "We met hoping to resolve the dispute but were offered a worse deal than we originally rejected."
Mr Brown apologised to passengers but said: "It's a last resort... but [First] is the one with the purse strings and the cash to resolve it. "We've put countless counter-proposals on the table but they won't listen."
Drivers across Dorset have also decided in favour of strike action according to the ITV news service.
More than a hundred bus drivers across Dorset have walked out on strike. The five day strike is effecting First Wessex drivers who are angry that colleagues in places like Yeovil get more for the same job. The Unite Union says its members are angry at a 2.3 per cent pay offer from the First Group, while drivers in Bristol were given a 13 per cent increase. Nearly 90 per cent of the drivers voted in favour of strike action.
Bob Lanning, Unit Regional Officer said about the strike action, We have been negotiating since last December on a pay deal which should have started last August. Our members are fed up with the unfair and unequal treatment being meted out by the bosses year in, year out.
Talks between the union Unite which represents the drivers have not been going well according to a report in the Dorset Echo.
Unite regional officer Bob Lanning said: "We are faced with an intolerable situation where twice in the last ten days the management have said that they would come to the table with an improved offer – and on both occasions they have not budged.
"This dispute is being pockmarked by the management’s bad faith and broken promises.
"As a result, we are calling four more days of strike action next week as our members are very angry at the management’s duplicity."
Mr Lanning added: "Unite‘s door for talks is always open, but the negotiations must be genuine from the management side.
"We know that the strikes are causing inconvenience for the travelling public – striking is the last thing our members want, but they are fed up with being the ‘poor relations’ when it comes to pay compared with other First Bus drivers in the West Country."
Marc Reddy, First Dorset managing director, said that the demands made by drivers were "simply not affordable". "It’s deeply unfortunate and frustrating that the union is taking this action, especially since our offers come on the back of pay increases in 2013 and 2014."
What Mr. Reddy failed to mention was that in 2014 the drivers made significant concessions in those contract negotiations. In those negotiations they paid for their own pay rise by agreeing to a 20% reduction in their sick pay, gave up a shift premium for working an evening shift, and agreed to do CPC courses on their own time and without pay. This is a contributing factor underlying drivers' dissatisfaction with FirstGroup..
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