Pay Up, Arriva North West
+++STOP PRESS+++ Strike ends after 29 days. Unite the union has today (Friday 19 August) declared the strike at Arriva North West over having secured a magnificent pay deal for its members. Unite’s 2,043 members across 11 Merseyside garages have voted overwhelmingly to accept the 11.1 per cent offer, worth an additional average of £2,300 on the workers’ salaries, equal to an extra £55 per week. Read the full story +++STOP PRESS+++
Arriva North West can easily afford to give its bus drivers a fair and proper pay rise. Companies that can afford to pay, should #PayUp. Please back Arriva North West bus drivers in their fair pay fight.
Back our bus workers!
On strike from 20 July
Over 1,000 bus drivers from Arriva North West are walking out over the company’s pitiful pay offer of just 3% (without strings) or 6% if they give up their sick pay.
With real inflation (CPI) running at 11.7%, 3% and 6% are real terms pay cuts!
Enough is enough
Strike action is a last resort for the drivers working out of depots in Birkenhead, Bolton, Bootle, Liverpool, Macclesfield, Manchester, Runcorn, Southport, Speke, St Helens and Winsford.
But when a mega wealthy company makes an insulting pay offer, it’s time to take a stand.
Greed not need
Deutsche Bahn, the German-state owned, owner of Arriva is the biggest and richest transport company in the world.
New research by Unite shows that over 10 years, Arriva's UK bus division has handed over half a billion pounds in profits to the shareholders of its parent company, Deutsche Bahn. During that time bus workers from Arriva North West have contributed an estimated £60 million to the company's coffers!
The research also exposed a spiral of declining wages for workers at Arriva North West. With real terms pay falling by 2 percent since 2017, when compared with inflation. Read more here.
And, over the last 10 years, Deutsche Bahn has banked £5.9 billion in profits and paid out dividends of £4.3 billion to the German government.
That’s huge sums of money to hoard while workers are struggling with the worst cost of living crisis in generations.
The drivers aren’t asking for much. They just want to be able to support their families and not worry about being unable to afford their bills.
Arriva can easily afford to pay better.
What do you think? Take the poll
Should companies like Arriva, that can afford to pay, give their workers fair and proper pay rises to help them cope with the soaring cost of living? Vote in the poll.
