Unions are balloting bus drivers on whether to take strike action over demands for a £500 bonus payment for working during the Olympics because of an expected hike in passenger numbers.
Unite has sent out ballot papers to its 20,000 members, after off-duty drivers protested yesterday outside Transport for London’s head office.
The union expects 800,000 extra passengers to travel on buses during the Games and attests that the drivers are the only London transport workers not receiving extra pay.
As a result, it is demanding bonuses that are of a similar level to those promised to employees of London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway, Network Rail and Virgin Trains.
But Transport for London said that bus drivers were not employed by it as an organisation, but by 21 separate private companies that set their own pay rates.
Unite’s regional secretary for London, Peter Kavanagh, told the Daily Mail: “With 72 days left until the Games begin and a strike ballot under way, it’s astonishing that bus operators are still doing zero to resolve this dispute and TfL is refusing to get involved.”
Passengers should direct their anger at TfL and the business companies as their behaviour was a “massive dereliction of a duty to London”, he added.
