People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said,
“Translink bus drivers and workers have every right to expect a decent pay rise.
Bus drivers stayed on the frontline throughout the pandemic making sure a vital service remained available and making sure many other essential workers could get to work.
They’ve also been on the receiving end of loyalist violence engineered to ramp up sectarian division.
The existing pay offer is a real-terms pay cut. This is the same insulting Tory pay cut that the Stormont Executive imposed on health and social care workers.
Workers and the least well-off in our communities are in a hardship emergency – but it’s MLAs and MPs who are receiving significant pay increases.
There is something seriously wrong when corporations – energy companies, major retailers and weapons manufacturers – are cashing in while growing numbers of workers are having to use foodbanks.
The SDLP Infrastructure Minister and her Executive party colleagues are happy to pat bus workers on the back but have looked the other way when it comes to making sure they’re paid properly.
The Executive parties have treated workers with contempt and those chickens are coming home to roost.
Public transportation is a key way to address the cost of the fuel crisis. A radical expansion of public transport along with free or even radically reduced fares would help lots of people now who can’t afford to fill their tanks. Instead, we’re told the public transport budget is threatened with being slashed.
We encourage all Translink workers to send a clear message that they demand better. No one should wait on cynical election promises. Now is the time for all workers to show they’re prepared to take action.”