‘Overwhelming mandate’

A 24-hour strike today (March 2) by about 450 employees at the Oxford Bus Company was strongly supported as workers stood against hard line bosses who want to salami slice the pay and conditions of workers in one of the UK’s most expensive cities.

“We have had brilliant support for the strike today which shows the strength of feeling by our members about the poor management at the Oxford Bus Company and the failure to seriously address the reasons for this dispute,” explained Unite regional officer Marie Hall.

“This industrial dispute is strongly supported by our membership at the bus company which voted for strike action by a massive 90 per cent,” she added. “This is an overwhelming mandate.”

Unite said that it appreciated the disruption that the strike caused to the travelling public, but laid the blame at the door of the company’s managing director Phil Southall who wanted ‘to break the union’.

“The next 24-hour strike is due on Monday (March 6) and is set to go-ahead, but I can reiterate that Unite’s door remains open for constructive and meaningful talks under the auspices of the conciliation service, Acas,” Hall noted.

The dispute centres on the failure of the company to enter into any meaningful talks on the annual pay award for the year starting 1 November 2016 and the failure to adequately compensate the whole workforce for Christmas/new year working.

The company, part of the highly profitable Go Ahead Group, gained unwelcome publicity in December, after ‘Scrooge’ bosses refused to pay drivers extra for working on two legally recognised bank holidays over the festive season which meant individual drivers lost £100-a-day.

Ahead of today’s strike, Hall argued that the dispute “is entirely of the company’s own making, as it has totally failed to engage in meaningful negotiations, instead it has adopted an aggressive stance to the workforce in what is a legitimate industrial dispute.

“As the Oxford public knows only too well, the city is one of the most expensive places in the UK to live and bring up families,” she said. “Unite is not prepared to stand by and see our members’ standard of living seriously eroded by this highly profitable company.

“The management has made no offer for the pay year which should have started in November and the options that it has proffered on Christmas/new year working are either inadequate or designed to be divisive with ‘winners and losers’.

“Because of the hard line tactics of the bosses, our members are reluctantly taking strike action in defence of their incomes in these economically challenging times.”

Unite has also condemned action management took on Tuesday (February 28) when it tore up the trade union agreement it had with Unite, prompting the union to write to Oxford East MP Andrew Smith and MEP for South East England Anneliese Dodds, as well as the city council Labour group asking for support.

In the letter, Unite south east regional secretary Jennie Formby said this was ‘a direct attack on our trade union, on our elected representatives and on our members, as well as a significant abdication of responsibility on the part of what should be a reasonable employer to engage meaningfully in collective bargaining’.

Unite has nearly 450 members at the company, including drivers, maintenance staff and admin workers.