London bus strike: The one chart that tells you why bus drivers are on strike today
Drivers are employed by 18 different companies, and the pay system is 'chaos'
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Your support makes all the difference.London’s bus drivers are on strike for 24 hours as they demand equal pay across the city’s 18 individual bus operators and 80 different pay rates.
A map produced by Unite the Union hopes to demonstrate the complexity of this system.
A spokesman for Unite told the Independent: “Unite works for working people and we think it's important that the public are fully informed about the reasons for this strike.
“We thought it essential to produce this map in order to fully outline to passengers why the strike is taking place and the chaos of so many different pay rates.
“It's a clear and easy guide and we know passengers have really welcomed the map.
“No one ever takes strike action lightly but there is real inequality of pay on the buses. That's just not fair and not good enough.”
TfL said in a statement: “Bus drivers are employed by the individual (private) bus companies and have been for over 20 years.
“Bus driver rates of pay have been negotiated and agreed between Unite and the bus companies individually under a long-standing and jointly agreed process. This has regularly resulted in pay rises above the rate of inflation.
“This dispute, in which only 16 per cent of bus drivers voted for strike action, will achieve nothing except further inconvenience to London's 6.5 million daily bus passengers.”
A union spokesman said that drivers’ pay can differ by £3 per hour, from £9.30 to £12.34. TfL says "levelling up" would cost £100m a year and lead to higher fares and cuts in services.
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