Bus workers across London will strike on Friday 22 June to win a £500 across-the-board bonus for Olympics working.
Up to 21,000 workers could participate in the strike, and the Unite union said it was expecting involvement from workers at every single bus operator in London.
Unite officer Peter Kavanagh said: “London buses will come to a standstill for the first time in a generation across London on 22 June.
“The blame lies squarely with the bus operators and Transport for London. The bus companies haven't met with Unite once to discuss bus workers' extra contribution to the Olympic Games and TfL has refused to intervene.”
It will be the first London-wide bus strike since 1982. Unite has promised further action if workers’ demands are not met, adopting an aggressive strategy of escalation by announcing that they will demand an extra £100 every time bosses refuse to meet their claim.
New scandals dog the Olympics circus every day — from allegations that senior foreign diplomats have been trading their tickets allocations on the black market, to the revelation that use of the special “VIP lanes” has effectively been paid for, to the uproar around the militarised security which will involve missile placements on the roofs of residential blocks.
In such a context, the callousness of London’s transport bosses and the Olympics overseers in refusing to reward the workers (without whom the Games cannot hope to function) for a massive increase in workload is revealed for what it is — swingeing corporate greed that suggests the London Olympics have very little to do with sport and a lot to do with making rich people even richer.
