Bus strike in Japan

[jc]

japantoday.com/category/national/okayama-buses-strike-by-continuing-to-run-and-refusing-to-take-anyone%E2%80%99s-money

Interesting as they have removed the penalty on the passenger for the industrial dispute to avoid driving them away.

Has this ever happened in the UK? I wonder what operators would make of it?

Edit- I suppose the operator could either a) lock the gates or b) hire a small army to enforce fares on the day, but you'd still have to offset the cost of that against not paying the drivers so they'd still be losing money

[deerfold]

Interesting, but, assuming some passengers have season tickets, it makes no difference to them. Also, unless the vast majority of drivers take part then it may well be worth buying a day ticket anyway.

[jc]

Another dimension to this is the reason for striking in the first place, concern about working conditions due to competition.

The awkward question of whether its in their best interest for the competitor to pull off the route at that point surely lends weight to a route contracting model rather than on-road competition.