Striking London bus drivers have warned that extreme heat inside their cabs, reaching 44C, could lead to fatal crashes and drivers passing out at the wheel. More than 1,500 Arriva North London bus drivers from eight garages in north and east London and Essex started two days of industrial action on Friday, as the UK endures its fifth heatwave of the summer. Drivers likened their cabs to being in a greenhouse or oven, with temperatures exceeding 40C due to a lack of air conditioning in record heatwave conditions.
Drivers report heatstroke and near-misses
Drivers reported falling ill with heatstroke, refusing to drive buses, and narrowly avoiding crashes as a result of their working conditions. The strikes, planned by Unite the Union for 11 different occasions between now and mid-October, are urging Arriva to replace their air-cooling system with air conditioning.
Peter Crane, 62, who has driven for Arriva for 22 years, showed the Press Association a photo of his cab temperature reading at 44C on Friday. He said: “We’re so fed up, we get into the bus, and it’s absolutely boiling. It makes you drowsy. It makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. You’re sweating, you’re sticky. It’s like, you get off a plane, you go to Greece or Spain or something. It’s like being in a greenhouse. That’s my life. You can’t walk out. It’s not like an air-conditioned office. Not like our bosses, our directors, who are driving by with what we need, air-con in a car, it’s cool. We just want the same thing. Why can’t we have air-con? Why can’t we be comfortable and safe?”
Asked what his message to Arriva would be, Mr Crane said: “Do you really care about the comfort of your staff? Because there’s no evidence of it. It’s all talk.” Mr Crane was amongst around 50 drivers striking outside Wood Green bus garage in north London. Protesters gathered peacefully with music on, holding placards reading “Too hot to work. Act now!” and union flags, and handing out pamphlets reading “No to heatstroke. Yes to heat strikes” as cars and buses honked horns as they drove by.
Drivers fear sanctions for following advice
Drivers work shifts of up to 10 hours with a break in the middle, and have been told by Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan, via LBC, that they have a right to refuse to drive a bus if it is too hot. However, striking drivers said that they feared following Sir Khan and Transport for London (TfL) advice because of potential sanctions from their company.
A driver named Peter Skinner, 56, told PA: “It’s very hard, very exhausting, tiring, it’s awful. I know a young lady personally that works in another garage who passed out as she stepped out a cab, she was pregnant at the time. The problem with TfL is we don’t work for TfL. So TFL would be making a lot of comments and statements that, to us, are irrelevant. We get Sadiq Khan saying ‘you don’t have to drive a bus if it’s not got working air conditioning’, we do, because our governor says we do, we don’t work for Sadiq Khan.”
Mr Skinner added: “It’s absolutely pressing, isn’t it? How long is it going to be before a driver does pass out on the wheel? Think of the carnage of a 14-tonne bus with 80 people in it, that could make a big mess.”
Union and management respond
Moe Manir, 38, has driven buses since he was 20 and, although he works for a different company, used a day off to support the industrial action. He told PA: “I’m hearing colleagues say they try to threaten sanctions, if they try to come out the cab because it’s too hot, threatening docked pay or being (put) up for disciplinary for refusing to drive buses that are too hot to drive, or taking too long on a break because of the hot cab. The only way you can fight back is to get colleagues together and stand on the picket line. It’s very difficult to concentrate and it’s a safety critical role. It’s very easy that a scooter or cyclist comes out from the side road, and if you’re tired or fatigued because of the excessive heat, you could have a fatality there. When you go into a cab, it’s a day and night difference (to a car). You’re in an oven. You know, like, sometimes it feels like it’s in a microwave when it gets so hot. So it’s like a confined space and there’s no ventilation. Even if you open the window, that’s not ventilation, it’s hot air coming in.”
Unite the Union regional officer Steve Stockwell told PA that driving conditions this summer have been “some of the worst they’ve ever been”, despite union warnings 18 months ago. Outlining what changes were being demanded, he said: “There are two parties that need to make a change. TfL send the spec sheets out that the operators have to use, so TFL needs to change the specs. But the operators are the employers. So they need to do something to keep our drivers cool, we need a structure to get air conditioning on all our buses.”
Wasim Mohammed, managing director of Arriva London, said: “Extreme heat is creating challenges across many sectors, including London’s bus network. The wellbeing of our colleagues and customers is our top priority, and we are working closely with Transport for London to ensure appropriate support is in place. We have already introduced additional support for drivers during hot weather, including regular breaks and welfare checks – and are continuing to invest in long-term improvements, including upgraded air conditioning systems and new buses coming into our fleet. These upgrades are complex and being led by TfL as part of its extreme heat taskforce. We urge Unite to come back to the negotiating table and engage with us constructively so we can avoid further disruption.”
Upcoming strike dates
The industrial action is scheduled for 11 separate occasions. In August, strikes are planned from 14 August (4:00am) to 15 August (4:30am), 18 August (4:00am) to 21 August (4:30am), and 25 August (4:00am) to 28 August (4:30am). In September, strikes are set for 4 September (4:00am) to 5 September (4:30am), 7 September (4:00am) to 8 September (4:30am), 18 September (4:00am) to 19 September (4:30am), and 21 September (4:00am) to 22 September (4:30am). In October, strikes are planned for 2 October (4:00am) to 3 October (4:30am), 5 October (4:00am) to 6 October (4:30am), 16 October (4:00am) to 17 October (4:30am), and 19 October (4:00am) to 20 October (4:30am). The strikes are set to continue unless Arriva and TfL address the drivers' demands for air conditioning.
