THOUSANDS of people were inconvenienced yesterday by bus strike in all districts as the government and the transport companies continued to disagree over the interpretation of an agreement whose conditions have raised questions.
Bus drivers working for companies operating in the Republic’s five districts went on an indefinite strike because they had not been paid January wages.
Their bosses say the government has not paid them the agreed subsidies and they had no cash to pay employees.
The government said it had transferred enough cash for the companies to pay staff and accused them of using strike action as leverage to get more money.
Communications Minister Efthimios Flourentzos said the drivers were effectively pushed to strike, an accusation denied by the companies.
The ministry was locked in negotiations all day yesterday and by last night bus drivers in Larnaca agreed to suspend their measures. The other bus companies said they would answer the official side today.
As the 1,200 or so drivers stood around protesting their case islandwide yesterday, the public was left to fend for themselves.
While some people, like Yen Quong from Vietnam, were left stranded at bus stations waiting for over an hour for a bus that never came, many pupils were unable to attend their schools because of the lack of public transport.
According to reports, several primary and secondary schools in rural areas were severely hit by the strike, with only 16 out of 222 pupils going to the Solea primary school, while four out of a possible 50 pupils arrived yesterday at their school in Omodhos.
“We had no idea that there were no buses today, so now we have to find another way to go to Paphos which will inevitably cost us more money” said Mark and Christine, a couple from South Africa.
“I am used to walking, but I have friends who work outside Nicosia and it has been very difficult to find another way to get to work because we use the buses all the time” Darmit from Bangladesh said.
But the drivers remained adamant. “We shall not back down” was the prevailing sentiment among roughly 170 strikers the main station in Solomou Square.
“The payment of our salary is our unequivocal right” wrote most placards.
“Every month it’s the same old story, it’s unbelievable that we have to go on strike to demand the bare minimum from our work, which is our wage” said Sotiroulla Andreou, one of five female bus drivers working on rural destinations from Nicosia.
“It’s the first of the month and I haven’t been paid, bills are piling up, fuel prices are going up and the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) is threatening to impose fines on late payments and I don’t know what to do,” said Nikos Panayiotou, a bus driver and father of four.
“How are we going to pay our bills on time and not incur fines when we are not paid?” questioned Andrekos Stephanou, a bus driver wearing an eighties mullet hairstyle.
“The ministry and the bus company are completely detached from reality and they don’t understand that without wages, people have no money to buy the bare necessities,” Athos Malas, another bus driver said.
Stelios Stephanides, who emigrated to Cyprus a few years ago described, almost in tears how with a wage of roughly €1,200, and with his wife currently receiving a disability pension of around €200, he was struggling to make ends meet.
“We are not asking anything unreasonable. We are neither the crème de la crème of the civil service nor air traffic controllers, and we are not demanding pay rises or benefits, simply that we are paid our wages” said Andreas Stylianou.
The bus drivers said that the public transport project lacked the correct planning and infrastructure and said that a possible nationalisation of the service could solve some of the issues.
They claimed that there was a clear lack of respect for bus drivers while they lamented the fact that their routes are mostly boarded by one or two people, predominantly foreigners.
“If I had a penny for every time drivers swore at me while driving I would be a millionaire” said Stephanides.
