by Andy Beadle, Retired bus driver
Bus drivers and road safety campaigners marched through central London on 5 November to Transport for London (TfL)’s posh head office. This wasn’t without incident. From the start, police officers tried to get us to walk on the pavement rather than the planned route through London streets, though we stood firm.
Outside the TfL HQ, drivers spoke about the dangers of tired and overworked bus workers being pressurised by their bosses and controllers to ‘keep going’, ‘carry on driver’.
One driver, James, explained that he defied an instruction to drive his bus further when a red light appeared on the dashboard warning that the brakes were defective. He later was told to sign a piece of paper promising to obey such dangerous and illegal instructions in future. He refused. He had also refused to drive a bus when the exit doors remained open.
I know these weren’t isolated incidents because I have personally faced similar things. If only the police were as quick to point to the real law-breakers as they were to try to restrict our demo!
Management bullying is rife in bus garages. Only a strong union can give drivers the confidence to resist these shortcuts, knowing they will be backed up by the union. If anything went wrong, not only passenger safety but the driver’s licence and livelihood would be in jeopardy.
Road safety campaigners and a speaker from the London cycling campaign unsurprisingly were also against tired bus drivers working on our streets.
Privatisation
Safety campaigner Tom Kearney was not the only speaker to point out the TfL bosses are not incentivised to make safety the main priority. He said that TfL documents going back years speak of safety, but seem to exist mainly for public consumption, rather than management guidance. TfL is the overall transport authority, but the services are run by private companies. Tom said of private firms, “money is made on headway and mileage”, and “safety is not a priority”.
Almost invariably, the management of TfL come from (and sometimes return to) the private transport firms – they are not safety campaigners, passenger representatives or elected trade union reps.
It says in Unite the Union’s rulebook that public transport should be publicly owned. That is the only way we can begin to make our industry democratically accountable to workers and those who rely on buses and road safety.
Only workers’ organisation can ensure safety. Under capitalism, even when safety laws are enacted or regulation enforced, it will always be subject to constant undermining by big business. That is why we need strong unions. That is why we need socialist nationalisation.