Warrington's Own Buses drivers vote to strike over worker's dismissal

Warrington's Own Buses operates services across the town

A bus firm's drivers have voted to strike over the "unjustified" sacking of a worker for what a union said were "nonsensical and spurious" reasons.

Unite said the "trumped up" charges the Warrington's Own Buses driver faced were "a barely disguised attempt" to get rid of one of its representatives.

It said 83% of members at the council-owned firm supported a strike.

Warrington Council said the dismissal was for "clear" safety breaches and to claim anything else was "erroneous".

"While we do not usually discuss staffing matters, we simply do not recognise the claims being made by Unite," a council representative said.

The union said the driver was sacked "after his bus broke down because he took a picture of the vehicle's undercarriage to show the fault more clearly to the engineer".

"The company dismissed the worker for breaching health and safety rules as the engine was still running when he bent down to take the picture," a union representative said.

"This is despite the company admitting other workers had done similar things and not been sacked for them."

'Conflict of interest'

It said that during the worker's appeal, the firm had "changed its reason for dismissing him" and had claimed the worker, "who had previously worked as a mechanic, would have tried to fix the fault himself if given the opportunity, although the worker did no such thing".

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the "trumped up charges" against the driver were "nonsensical and spurious".

"This is a barely disguised attempt to get rid of this worker for carrying out his legitimate trade union duties," she added.

The Labour-controlled council, which owns the firm, said the driver was suspended "for clear breaches of our established mobile phone and safety policies, which have been previously agreed by the trade union".

"Our reasons for dismissal have been consistent and have not changed," its representative said.

They said to suggest otherwise was "erroneous" and there were "other factual inconsistencies" in the comments put out by Unite.

They said the union had "reported a very similar mobile phone breach against another employee a matter of weeks ago and demanded action be taken against the member of staff".

"[That was] an almost identical case, so it is unclear to us why, on this occasion, the union representatives are taking such a different stance.

"We believe there may be a conflict of interest here."

They added that the council had "attempted to discuss this with Unite to resolve matters and would welcome further discussions".