buses
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in transport and distribution around the world.
Autoreduction movements in Turin, 1974
Eddy Cherki and Michel Wieviorka's account of the workers' self-reduction of prices movement in the Italian city of Turin in the 1970s.
To consider the new developments in social struggle within Western Europe since 1968, one must turn to Italy. The organization of the worker's movement, often on a mass scale, has assumed original forms. Urban struggles have led to organized union and political neighborhood actions with stakes tied to consumption.
Bus strikes in East London
Bus drivers and engineers in East London walked out today in a 24-hour action which stopped around 750 buses and either froze or disrupted 58 routes.
The East London Bus Company employs 2,600 workers, of which all but 200 are members of the Unite Union. The union balloted its members after the company imposed a pay freeze on its staff, claiming the recession had forced their hand. The vote was in favour of strike action by 84%.
Striking transport workers in Lyon occupy head office
After six days of strike action 20 workers have occupied parts of the head office of Keolis, the company responsible for the city's public transport.
The strike action began on Thursday with strong support by workers leaving only 58% of metro; 32% of tram and 25% of bus services running. Workers were protesting against management attempts to remove a large number of conditions from their contracts.
Sydney bus drivers defy union and take wildcat action
A six-hour strike by 130 bus drivers in western Sydney on Monday morning, carried out in defiance of their union, has produced furious denunciations in the media and from an industrial court judge. The drivers walked out at the Busways Blacktown depot at 3.30 a.m. against the imposition of new timetables that would impose shorter times for routes.
Drivers said that the timetables, due to commence in October, would be impossible to meet, forcing them to run late, which would not only inconvenience and anger passengers but cut short the drivers’ break periods. The workers said they would be under enormous pressure to drive over the speed limit.
Cairo bus strike ends
Cairo bus strike ends after the government gave in to most demands.
Many of Cairo’s public busses have disappeared from the capital city’s street over the past two days. Drivers, ticket-takers and mechanics from 14 of the 19 bus garages in Cairo and Giza governorates are on strike demanding improved working conditions and awaiting tangible responses from the authorities.
Organizing worker struggles through direct democracy: the Barcelona bus drivers struggle for two days off, 2007-2008
An account of the Barcelona bus workers victory.
This is about a successful struggle of bus drivers on Barcelona's transit system between the fall of 2007 and March of 2008. Unlike the transit workers in Madrid, who had two days off each week, bus drivers in Barcelona were forced to work a six-day week.
Iranian bus workers’ statement on the demonstrations
Statement of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company about the recent unrest sparked by discontent with the claimed results of the 2009 election.
Vahed Syndicate – Any Suppression or threat of civil liberty condemned
In line with the recognition of the labour rights, we request that June 26 Action Day – Justice for Iranian workers – to include the human rights of all Iranians who have been deprived of their rights.
Bus worker wildcats spread across Dublin north
The wildcat strike action taken by Dublin Bus drivers has spread to four new garages as the dispute enters its third day.
The dispute began on Sunday after a driver at the Harristown depot was suspended when he refused to work a new schedule.
The 450 staff at the Harristown depot stopped work in solidarity with the driver before the dispute spread to the Clontarf depot.
At present just two depots are operating (based in South Dublin) with almost all of the North Dublin routes brought to a total standstill.
Unions head off transport workers' struggles in Ireland, airport wildcats planned
Members of SIPTU at the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) last week served notice of strike action on Thursday (1st April) at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports, but a spokesman for the union said no official sanction had been given for any industrial action at the airports.
The threat came as SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) agreed to suspend industrial action due to begin tomorrow in protest at €31m in cutbacks. But no sooner had one industrial action been suspended when another kicked in.
1891: London bus workers' strike
A history of the first strike by London transport workers in 1891, which was over pay and conditions and largely successful. The article also contains some information about developments in bus workers' unions around the same period.
The first person to try and organise the London tram and bus workers into a union, was a young barrister called Thomas Sutherst.
He managed, with considerable help from the London Trades Council to organise between two and three thousand tram workers, into The London County Tramway & Omnibus Employees union founded in 1889.
