All the updates from the 42nd ITF Congress in Mexico
City - plus check out the daily
news updates. The 2010 event also features two special
conferences on Young Transport Workers and Climate Change.
Unite's passenger transport trade group can
trace its history back to 1873. With more than
95,000 bus, coach, taxi, tram and rail workers in the 150
large local companies and many smaller companies,
too. Unite has organised most of the employees of
household names such as Stagecoach, First, Arriva and National
Express. Indeed, approximately 90 per cent of Britain's
local service bus workers, across most companies, and towns
and villages in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, are in
this powerful and active sector.
Unite has drawn up a charter for bus workers
which demands equal ratesfor the job, eight hours maximum
daily driving time, 4 1/2 maximum spell, and ten hours daily
duty, and support for further re-regulation of the
industry. Unite Passenger Services has a big reputation for
solid and militant action to defend its members. Another major
issue is pay, which is being driven up, where necessary,
though industrial action and public campaigns.
Unite is also the only truly national
organisation for licenced taxi drivers, who in the main are
self-employed but the union collectively represents the collective
interests of the trade at all regulatory levels.
Key
issues
Employment retention and reorganisation in the bus industry are
notable concerns, with high quality training needed in most of the
large bus companies. Another major issue is pay, which is being
addressed by members through negotiation and, where necessary,
industrial action and continued campaigns. Unite has drawn up a
charter for bus workers which includes a guaranteed rate for the
job, eight hours' maximum daily driving time, final salary pensions
and quality contracts.
Graham Stevenson, National
Organiser,
Tel: 020 7611 2583, Fax: 020 7611 2759, Mobile: 07976 842 359,
e-mail: Graham.Stevenson@unitetheunion.org
