Metroline drivers vote on rotten pay offer

Drivers at Metroline in North and North West London will be balloting tomorrow on the company’s latest offer. Low pay offers will be familiar to every worker in the industry. Metroline’s offer, a two year deal, amounts to 2 percent on all rates of pay from 2010 with 1.5 percent in back pay.
The deal worsens the rate of pay for Boxing Day working and takes away a £38 enhancement for Good Friday working. Unite is rightly urging drivers to reject what amounts to a pay cut. If drivers were to accept, they would be allowing Metroline to drive down their standard of living. The Retail Price Index (RPI), the best measure of inflation, now stands at 5.1 percent.
The government’s own (less accurate) measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), stands at 4 percent. 

ComfortDelgro, Metroline's parent company, announced in December its operating profits are up by 11.7 percent to £187 million. The money is there to pay drivers a decent wage.