Next week’s 48-hour strike in the pay dispute between bus drivers and route operators Arriva has been suspended.
Back to work: next week’s 48-hour stoppage by south London bus drivers has been suspended
Around 1,000 drivers based at Croydon, Brixton, Norwood and Thornton Heath garages took part in the latest industrial action, a one-day strike on Wednesday, when 37 bus routes across south London were badly disrupted.
This followed a two-day strike that took place at the end of March.
Unite, the drivers’ trades union, said its members are “being pummelled by a double whammy of reduced earnings and rising living costs”, after Arriva offered a 3per cent pay rise, which the union described as “completely unacceptable”.
But the union kept the door open to Arriva for further negotiations to deliver an acceptable pay offer.
That breakthrough appeared to come this morning, with a brief statement from Transport for London to say that the two-day strike planned to start next Monday, May 16, and run through until the early hours of Wednesday May 18 was had been “suspended”.
The union is now to ballot members on an improved pay offer from Arriva.
“By standing firm and united, our members have sent a clear message to Arriva that they are determined to secure a fair pay increase,” said Unite official Bobby Morton.
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