Workers at Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) are continuing strikes in pursuit of an increased pay deal. The workers who are members of two trade unions, Unite and Unison, have rejected a paltry 3.2 percent pay offer, which is below the level of RPI inflation standing at 4.5 percent.

Around 400 Unison members who are employed as route planners, station assistants, engineers, IT experts, administrators, control room operators and cleaners have not received a pay rise due to them for six months. They are demanding a 9 percent pay increase and a four-day working week with protection on pay.

After holding several strike days in October, they walked out on November 5 and 7. This week, 24-hour strikes are being held Wednesday and Friday. Alongside the industrial action the employees are working to rule, refusing standby and call-out duties, and withdrawing goodwill.

Several hundred Unite members employed in ticketing, passenger assistance and providing information services for the bus network struck on November 5 and will take action on Wednesday. Unite has not provided details on a pay deal it will accept, stating in a November 4 press release only that “low paid workers… are demanding a rise that reflects the rising cost of living.”

TfGM workers have seen their pay eroded over a protracted period. According to a Unison study, depending on the pay point of specific workers, the pay of workers has fallen in real terms over the last 15 years by between 18 percent and 46 percent. Unison cites official statistics showing that between April 2009 and March 2025 average prices rose by 87 percent according to the Retail Price Index, while in comparison, average regular earnings in the whole economy rose by just 63 percent.

As with many public sector workers, TfGM staff suffered three years of pay freezes between 2010-2012—followed by years of below-inflation pay rises—as the then Conservative government initiated crushing austerity.

Unable to reach a deal with the TFGM, Unite regional industrial officer Samantha Marshall said in a press release, “TfGM is entirely responsible for the disruption to passengers that will be caused across Manchester’s bus and tram network. TfGM workers are clear: industrial action will not end until a fair pay offer is put forward.”

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, in another burst of the demagogy she specialises in, added, “Unite does not accept pay cuts dressed up as increases, which is exactly what TfGM is offering its staff. These workers have Unite’s total support in their fight for a reasonable pay offer.”

The fact is Unite does and continues to accept pay cut deals that it attempts to sell as victories. In their struggle, the workers involved in critical jobs at TfGM are not fighting alongside their bus driver colleagues because last month Unite ended a strike by around 2,000 Stagecoach and Metroline drivers after they accepted a revised pay offer of 12 percent over two years. In September the drivers at those companies launched a joint strike with their colleagues at First Bus.

In selling out that struggle, Unite suspended strike action—planned between September 30 and October 2, and again October 10, 11 and 13—to hold talks with management. This meant the only collective action that took place against the private bus operators during the strike mandate was between September 19-22.

As the WSWS noted, the deal Unite cooked up with the companies—which was rubber-stamped by Labour Mayor for Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, represented “only a little over the present RPI inflation rate at 4.6 percent and will be rapidly eaten up by debts workers have incurred including the rise in essential household bills for energy, water, and council tax above official inflation figures.”

Unite similarly sold the deal that ended the First Bus dispute as an exceptional pay award, citing a 20 percent rise over two years. But this didn’t meet the basic criteria of pay parity for the lowest-paid bus drivers in the region.

Speaking to the WSWS after the deal was pushed through, Stagecoach and Metroline drivers said it was reluctantly accepted—with many drivers in debt and struggling with the cost of living—and should have been over just one year and not two.

In 2021, following one of the first betrayals associated with Graham’s “leverage” strategy, bus drivers at Go North West in Manchester denounced a sellout deal, which contrary to Unite’s claims was not a victory.

Comments made by TfGM Managing Director Steve Warrener following Unite’s ending of the bus strikes attest to a company bolstered by the settlements and prepared to dig in. Quoted in the Manchester Evening News last week, Warrener declared, “We’re continuing discussions with the unions and are doing all we can to limit any impact on passengers on strike days.” He added “We’ve made several proposals to the unions” and insisted that TfGM would not agree to “a nine per cent pay rise for all staff and a four-day working week with no loss of pay. This would amount to an increase of around 30 percent in our employment costs. In the context of challenging public sector finances, it’s not affordable or sustainable.”

Burnham has presented the Bee Network—launched in September last year, with the entire bus network coming under the control of local authority run TfGM from this January—as an exemplar for public transport. The fact is the bus companies remain in private hands, with TfGM coordinating fares and timetables, in a form of privatisation supported and subsidised by state funding and has nothing in common with genuine public control of transport. The bus companies continue pull in vast profits from their operations in Greater Manchester and cities around the globe.

For all Burnham’s PR, every section of public transport workers in Greater Manchester are revolting against the shoddy pay and conditions that have been enforced by TfGM and the private operators.

On Tuesday, a strike ballot called by Unite of 320 Metrolink tram drivers closed. A yes vote could see industrial action underway by the end of the month.

The drivers, suffering from fatigue and exhaustion, are demanding better working conditions. Metrolink, the largest light rail/tram network in Britain is a critical component of the Bee Network. It serves a population of over 3 million people with staff operating 99 stops across eight lines and approximately 64 miles of track. Last year they handled a record 45 million journeys. But it is run, on behalf of TfGM, under franchise by the private consortium Keolis/Amey.

Shift patterns at Metrolink’s Warwick Road South and Queens Road depots mean that drivers have to work 450 hours over a 12-week period. This results in some drivers working 50 hours on, followed by just two days off, then having to go back into another 50-hour work pattern. Unite said of conditions that “Drivers also have fewer rest days compared to all other operational departments. This is causing safety concerns around fatigue, with drivers concerned about operating heavy vehicles while exhausted and unable to have proper breaks.”

TfGM workers face the necessity of coordinating their struggles in the face of the offensive of the private firms who run the Bee Network and are demanding ever greater profits. In this they confront not only Burnham, a representative of the ruling Labour Party who opposes strikes against the operators insisting that Greater Manchester and the country is “not awash with money.” To take forward their fight TfGM workers are also up against the union bureaucracy whose control over disputes leads only to the curtailing and sabotage of industrial action, and in sellout agreements. The unity of bus workers across depots and companies can only be established by forming rank-and-file committees, acting independently of the unions’ bureaucratic apparatus, which will champion workers conditions, safety and dignity.