No end to bus strike

THE BUS strike continued for a third day yesterday with drivers warning that if government and companies did not work out their differences, they would escalate measures. 

Bus drivers who have been striking over not been paid their January wages said that if nothing changed by Monday they carry out their threat.

 “We are thinking of how we can escalate our struggle,” union SEK’s Pantelis Stavrou said.

While services resumed in Larnaca on Thursday, commuters in the island’s remaining districts continued being inconvenienced.

Stavrou said that if by Monday the situation had not changed that strikers from all districts should get together to decided “what stronger actions we should take”.

“We are determined to see this through,” Stavrou’s Paphos colleague Petros Demosthenous said. 

The bus companies are saying they have no cash flow because the government has not paid them the agreed subsidies while the government said it had transferred enough cash for companies to pay their staff. 

Communications Minister Efthymios Flourentzos said yesterday that he was hoping that companies would exhibit good will “just as the Ministry has by supporting (the companies) so that they have the necessary cash flow to respond to their obligations and so lift any strike measures”. 

Flourentzos said that the system would not fail. 

“The system is given the necessary support… Any weakness arose by companies presenting cash flows,” he said adding this was the reason they were still waiting for the companies’ financial reports.