Picket line Lea Interchange bus garage 12/12/2025. Photo: Louis Bailey
Management have been doing their worst to try to browbeat and sabotage the union, but workers have stood fast through solidarity, reports Louis Bailey
Lea Interchange bus garage was a ghost town today as the workers went on strike and management tried everything in their power to ruin it. There was a solid and confident picket line on a rainy Friday morning, reggae playing, and hot tea and coffee being served. Regular horns of solidarity could be heard over the laughter of the bus workers. They are striking over union busting tactics from management with four days of strike action on 12 and 13 December, and 8 and 9 January.
Lea Interchange is a vital bus station that provides bus routes for the North East of London. The Unite the Union rep I spoke to told me of how the management had been intimidating him for his work on building up union membership. The management attempted to destroy the strengthening of the union by suspending the chair of the branch. But when the membership came back with 100% ballot to go on strike, the chair of the branch was quickly reinstated. Building on this support for the reps, they called a ballot to go on strike about union-busting tactics winning a 97% mandate.
A delegation of us went to the picket from Leyton and Wanstead Your Party as we think supporting striking workers in their disputes is a crucial role that You Party must play. This follows the branch also going down to support NEU members on strike at Belmont Park school. This is the necessary work to make Your Party the party for the working class.
At Lea Interchange, management’s union-busting tactics have continued into the strike, but some canny acts of trade-union solidarity foiled these attempts at sabotage.
Most of the striking workers I spoke to were very new to being bus drivers but also this was their first picket line. They were steadfast in their support for their union and the trust they have in their reps to bring them better working conditions and onwards to better pay in the future.
Get down to the Lea Interchange on the dates above from 9am all day and support the bus workers without whom, we couldn’t live our normal lives!
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