Alistair Tice, Sheffield Socialist Party

Since the beginning of September, maintenance workers at Sheffield First bus garage have taken 19 days of strike action in pursuit of a pay rise to the Real Living Wage. The 18 shunters, fuellers and cleaners are employed by contractors Bidvest Noonan; they are currently on only the national minimum wage. 

Bidvest Noonan is part of the Bidvest Group, which reported £278 million in profits in the half-year to December 2023.

In April, First Group announced that it had become an accredited ‘real living wage employer’, paying all workers at least £12 an hour. First stated that “includes workers employed through third-party contractors”. But Bidvest refuses to even negotiate.

Unite members balloted unanimously for strike action, which has escalated to four days a week in November and will become indefinite in December if need be. The Sheffield strikers are now to be joined by their colleagues at Doncaster First bus garage who have just voted for industrial action as well.

Labour’s transport minister Louise Haigh is the MP for the constituency where the bus garage is. Socialist Party members say she should demand that First Group force Bidvest to pay the Real Living Wage or strip them of their accreditation. If they won’t pay decent wages they should be taken into public ownership.

Better still, the whole bus industry should be nationalised, including contractors, and placed under democratic workers’ control and management.