Tuesday, December 19, 2023, 00:53
The staff of the district bus concessionaire, Monbus, held a vote yesterday to determine whether or not they would finally go on strike, as the works committee had proposed to them. And 70% of the around 250 employees, most of them drivers, finally voted that they will go on strike, from the 30th of this month until January 7, coinciding with the final period of free public transport in the municipality that has been promoted by the City Council for these holidays. In any case, the staff assures that they have confidence in the City Council “to provide the means to help resolve the conflict and prevent the start of the strike, with the harm it would entail for users.”
The president of the committee, Francisco Tomás Muñoz, commented that the implementation of the bus-HOV lane has been “the straw that broke the camel's back.” Since Saturday, cars and motorcycles can circulate in the lane reserved for buses on Constitución and Gran Vía. «They have done it without consulting us and when the service began to circulate better after the mobility works; and we fear that it will spread to other lanes,” he noted.
But their demands go further, and, as explained, include problems of “employment discrimination” among the workforce. “Each worker has different conditions depending on whether they have been subrogated from the previous contract (Latbus), come from Santomera or Alcantarilla, or are new hires,” he said. “We want a single criterion for everyone.”
#Monbus #drivers #vote #strike