Busmen fight to save 6,000 jobs
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A NATIONWIDE strike of busmen protesting against cuts in public expenditure that could cost the industry 6,000 jobs is on the cards for April 21.
The stoppage is not an official one but is planned to coincide with a lobby of MPs at Westminster being arranged by the Transport and General Workers' Union.
At the lobby the busmen will be pressing the Government to restore cuts made in the revenue support grant and the bus replacement grant — cuts which it is claimed could save £75m.
And the TGWU has launched a new £40,000 campaign to publicise its campaign to get the cuts restored and it has accused 12 county councils of holding back the full amounts of the grants paid by the Government for transport.
TGWU national organiser for the bus and coach section Larry Smith said that this was the second way in which many bus companies — most of them National Bus subsidiaries — were being hit by the cuts.
Oxfordshire was singled out for criticism with its decision to cut off its subsidy to NBC which, says the union, will put 25 per cent of the company's county services at risk of closure.
Although the strike threat is not an official one the feeling among many busmen is to strike. Already in the Alder Valley company transport union members have voted to strike and Glasgow men have already demonstrated their anger.
Men occupied the Greater Glasgow PTE office in the city for two hours last week to protest at the planned closure of the garage at Partick.
In South Wales union members are to meet later this month to decide whether to go on strike.
News of the 24-hour stoppage threat comes just one year after busmen held their first-ever rally in London when cuts in services and cash was also the cause.
Mr Smith has warned that if the cuts go ahead some rural areas will be left as "isolated wastes" when services are withdrawn — and the more rural the area the more likely it was that the services would be cut, he said.