Extreme heat, extreme violence, extreme fatigue – everyday danger on London’s buses
After London experienced the hottest May temperatures on record, London Hazards Centre spoke to a Unite bus health and safety rep about the issues facing London’s bus drivers.
LHC: A few weeks ago temperatures hit a record 34.8C in London. Do you want to tell us what that was like on the buses?
Rep: The buses are essentially mobile greenhouses and temperatures inside the drivers cabs can exceed 40C. It’s a common misconception that buses have air conditioning. They don’t. Air-conditioning relies on recirculating air inside the buses and during the pandemic, after so many bus drivers lost their lives, the bus companies moved to air-cooling systems that draw a constant supply of fresh air from outside. These systems can only cool the air by 4-5C and it just isn’t effective in the temperatures we are now seeing. Some of the newer buses do have air conditioning but most don’t.
TfL have come up with a number of measures to try and address this problem. They say that we can take “heat breaks” but it doesn’t solve anything. You can stop the bus and take a break but then you have to get back into a 40C plus cab and carry on driving. And drivers are under alot of pressure from the route controllers if they do take their heat breaks. If you take too many heat breaks the company treat it like a medical condition, they take you off the road and send you to the company doctor. This is a big problem for drivers because we don’t get full sick pay so you lose alot of income. At best drivers get paid basic salary of 36 hrs a week, but this means losing enhancements for working unsocial hours and similar. In addition some companies only pay 80% basic salary and in most companies different workers are on different pay, terms and conditions, with newer starters generally on much worse terms and conditions than older drivers. So when they take you off the job and put you on sick for taking heat breaks, word gets around and drivers are reluctant to do it.
LHC: What about the rights to refuse unsafe work? Under section 44 of the Employment Rights Act it says qworkers should suffer no detriment if they refuse work they believe poses a serious and imminent danger?
Rep: The problem with section 44 is that it is an individual right. If I, as a rep, am seen to be organising drivers to take action using section 44, then it could be construed as organising unofficial industrial action. There are some older drivers who are more confident and will exercise their rights but the companies rely on divide and rule and alot of drivers fear repercussions.
LHC: I imagine drivers are also very nervous about stopping their buses for a heat break. One driver has been killed and another stabbed in recent weeks.
Rep: The levels of violence we face at work are off the scale. Last year, there was the driver in the Tottenham garage that got killed. You become immune to it after a while. Violence and aggression is just becomes part of your daily experience. I don’t know the reason but something seemed to shift after the pandemic and passengers now just seem much more angry. We’ve seen it this week with the tube strike. A few years back, passengers would be grateful for us for keeping London moving. Now its just a day of abuse. Drivers get assaulted day in, day out and there is no real support from the police or TfL. If someone kicks off on your bus and you call the police, the bus is empty by the time they arrive. 9 times out of 10 they take the side of the passenger rather than the driver.
LHC: The other problem in the heat is toilets. Often employers tell you to just drink cold water, but if you haven’t got access to a toilet then that becomes a problem.
Rep: Toilets have been an issue for many years and it becomes a real problem in hot weather when you’re drinking more water. 25% of routes lack a toilet at both ends. I’ve heard of drivers pissing in bottles, pissing in crisp packets. Its not TfL having the funding or the will but the local councils don’t want to give the planning permission to install the toilet facilities, which are these weird looking stainless steel cubes. Local residents complain they do not want a “turdis” outside their homes. There are obvious ways around this, you could make them more aesthetically pleasing and put them away from residential property. But there is no will to make it happen.
LHC: What are union reps like yourself doing about this?
Rep: The main focus for the union at the moment is on fatigue. We had a campaign around fatigue before Covid that voted 97% in favour of strikes but then it got shelved because of the pandemic. Its been very slow to get started again. We have a new officer who seems up for organising. It started with a survey and from there we are in a position where we are building up. Posters have been popping up all over the place talking about the dangers. In the recent heat wave temperatures reached 40C.
LHC: The Bow Garage is on strike next week over fatigue. Is this likely to spread to other companies?
Rep: The problem with fatigue is that the bus companies respond with technological fix. They’ve installed AI technology that wakes you up it if notices you’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. This obviously isn’t an answer to anything. The answer to fatigue is sensible shifts and sensible hours. The problem with spreading the Bow strike is that different bus companies have different schedules with some companies operating on the old pre-privatisation schedules which are much better. Really to unite all the bus drivers across London we need a campaign that takes on all these different issues, including proper protections during heatwaves. And we need a levelling up across companies and across the workforce.
Our conditions were much better before privatisation. For instance, before privatisation you would start and end your route at a bus garage, where there were toilet facilities and you didn’t get abused or attacked by members of the public. Since privatisation different garages are owned by different competing companies so you are forced to take your break at the end of the route on the street with no facilities.
LHC: What do you think is the answer to the problem of hot buses?
Rep: Its a difficult one. We really need an industrial ballot but if we started a ballot now it would not be until August until we could strike. And if you started a ballot in March, people are not feeling it and so its unlikely to get a good response. As a safety rep its difficult to stop the buses leaving the garages because you don’t know which have working air con until your driving them. We are supposed to do a “rounder” (a quick circular route) or an hour’s drive to test if the bus is in good working order. You can do a rounder or an hour and if the air con isn’t working bring the bus back to the garage and get another bus. The problem is that you might then be given another bus with the same problem.
As safety reps we do run out inspections and if we do not find the buses in serviceable condition, then we report them. But the problem here is that you report, then management say its fine, then you get a load of complaints from drivers that hardly anything is working. The system does not work. The answer is straightforward. They just need to reinstall the air conditioning. Every year its getting hotter and hotter and the problem is not going away. But management and TfL are doing nothing about it.
