In a strong display of worker solidarity, on Tuesday 5 November around 150 London bus drivers and UNITE union members marched to the Transport for London head office. Speakers demanded better working conditions and improved safety measures.
Institutionally unsafe
London bus driver and UNITE union member Peter Skinner described to me the daily lack of support and facilities for workers.
“It’s the basics, things like toilets. You can be driving two or three hours without the use of a toilet. We don’t have proper rest facilities; some drivers are forced to take breaks at the side of the road.”
He voiced grave concern for TFL’s focus on mileage and delivering the service whilst ignoring the working conditions of bus drivers. These included shift patterns of 13 days of consecutive work with just one day of rest, unbearable cab temperatures in summer or too cold in winter.
The argument put forward by the UNITE Union is that unsafe and unpleasant working conditions are not only bad for driver wellbeing but have dangerous repercussions for public safety. Exhaustion and fatigue significantly reduce the ability of bus drivers to focus on the road and the movements of pedestrians on busy London streets, potentially putting public safety at risk. Peter Skinner went so far as to call TFL’s bus operations “institutionally unsafe”.
To end the so called “safety scandal” UNITE Union have created a modest but crucial list of essential guaranteed rights, including the right to safe work schedules without any forced overtime or loss of pay and “the right to clean, serviced toilet and rest facilities on all bus routes”.
Are bus workers in Sussex facing similar challenges?
Sadly this state of affairs is not limited to London and appears to be replicated in other parts of the UK. I spoke to a Brighton and Hove bus driver who talked to me at length about the daily struggle faced by himself and his colleagues. They wish to remain anonymous, so will go by the name of Lesley.
They told me familiar stories, resonating with those of the TFL drivers, of long routes with no toilet or rest facilities. Lesley recalls colleagues having no choice but to urinate in an empty bottle due to a lack of toilets along their route. Similarly to London bus drivers, they also raised concern over the extreme temperatures in their cabins. In the summer drivers face extremely hot conditions over long shifts whilst in winter suffering ‘unbearable’ cold.
I was told about a lack of support from the Brighton and Hove Bus Company when dealing with problematic passengers. Incidents of intimidation, passenger to passenger racism and aggression towards bus drivers have in numerous instances gone undealt with. This has led some drivers to feel there is little point in reporting incidents in the first place.
Time is money
Lesley went on to tell me about the company’s significant focus on meeting timetable schedules and making a profit, as opposed to ensuring tolerable working conditions. They described ‘two types of bus drivers’. The first, often younger, willing to complete schedules by sacrificing breaks and potentially driving too fast to meet targets. The second tending to be drivers who do not force themselves to rush, instead opting to prioritise passenger and driver safety. However, those who miss scheduled targets risk being put onto other routes if deemed less capable or not up to the job by management. This driver told me they were concerned this would create a false expectation that completing such routes under strict timings is possible without sacrificing breaks, toilet breaks and appropriate speed limits.
Along with this, Lesley was clearly concerned about how union power had been quashed in recent years by new legal restrictions. They mentioned that some bus drivers see little point in being union members, as pay and conditions rarely improve – maybe because there has never been a Brighton and Hove bus strike. Union member apathy could be to blame or, as some members feel, compared to the power of RMT, UNITE Union’s representation of workers, particularly in the instance of Brighton and Hove bus drivers, is very weak.
Lesley told me that during pay disputes the bus company attempts to negotiate pay deals in return for changes to working conditions. A minimal increase in pay could therefore be tied to demands that would negatively impact their job, such as longer hours. This was attempted by Brighton and Hove buses in 2023 when a 7% pay increase was offered, on condition of cutting overtime rates. Many bus drivers on the Brighton and Hove network regularly work overtime, meaning the overall benefit of the deal was minimal. The pay offer was rejected by UNITE, but if it had gone ahead it would have led to drivers who worked overtime being worse off.
It seems bus drivers in London and Brighton and Hove face similarly unfair working conditions, spelling out the need for greater union power to take on company directors. Despite UNITE winning Brighton and Hove bus drivers a pay rise of 10% in 2023, some drivers question to what extent this is an achievement. There has been no change to working conditions leaving many to argue the rise does not fully reflect the stress and pressure of the job. Neither of the bus drivers I spoke to saw any possibility of change in their pay and conditions following the success of the Labour Party, raising questions as to what extent unions and the Labour Party truly represent working people.
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