SEVERAL commuters in the Corporate Area were left stranded yesterday afternoon as more than 2,400 employees of the state-run Jamaica Urban Transit Company went on strike to protest for higher wages.

The workers, represented by the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU), accused the company’s management of refusing to honour the wage agreement under the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU2).

The bus company, in a statement issued just after 4:00 yesterday afternoon, said it was unable to guarantee service on all its routes after 5:00 pm, and suggested that commuters make alternative travel plans.

Gwyneth Davidson, the bus company’s spokesperson, told the Observer that wage negotiations were still going on, but the disgruntled unionised workers said they could not guarantee service after 5:00 pm, which the company took seriously.

Later in the evening, the company, in a statement to the media, said that while hill routes in Kingston were still being provided with bus services, the Spanish Town routes served by the numbers 21, 32, 33, 46, 44, 32, 31, 31A and 75 buses had been severely affected. Bus services for Portmore were unaffected up to early evening, the bus company said. However, the buses that serve the Rockfort route – numbers 83, 85, 84, 81, 99, 97, 98, 99E and 97E had pulled their services.

At South Parade in downtown Kingston, several commuters, some apparently unaware of the strike, waited patiently, while employees of the bus company milled around the bus bays.

“Currently, we are on a hold for the time being, more like a go slow, but people pull in the depots from time to time, but for the time being management isn’t coming up with anything stable for us. Currently, they are in a meeting and we are waiting on the delegates to inform us,” said Kevin Morgan, who spoke on behalf of the JUTC workers.

He said the strike was called after what he claimed was the management’s attempt to ‘mislead’ workers.

“Everybody has been misled in the MOU because what was officially announced was that we were supposed to get up to 28 per cent in the first year and seven per cent in the second year, that would work out to 35 per cent. But what the workers are upset about is that the president of the JUTC is now coming out to say that we are not civil servants. So that get the people them really angry if we are not civil servants why have we been pinned down under the MOU for two years?” he queried.

“So what we would like to happen is give us the four per cent that was due to us from 2003, retroactive. So we would get three years money retroactive plus the seven per cent that they say they are giving to us if they don’t want to pay the 28 per cent,” Morgan said.

The strike, he said, should force the management’s hand as there was a 70 per cent support up to late evening.

“This wasn’t the only way to get the results, but this is the way the management forced us to go.,” said Morgan.

At the same time, one female driver employed to the company for five years claimed the wool had been pulled over their eyes from the onset. “Mi ignorant, mi can’t believe this (proposed figure), first mi hear 10 per cent, then mi hear seven; the bottom line is a pure rumour, even though at the end of the day them know the commuters a go suffer.”

Meanwhile, UAWU president Lambert Brown said the union had asked for a certain level of increases for the workers who have suffered a wage freeze through the last MOU.

“They suffered a wage freeze and now they are to get an increase, which is calculated on the basis of the MOU allowance, plus a seven per cent minimum in year one, and five per cent minimum in year two,” Brown said.

“The company correctly proposed the MOU allowance, plus seven per cent in year one, but only two per cent in year two,” the UAWU president said.