MY sympathies were already with York's bus drivers before the strike. A working day spent crawling through traffic jams, being cut up by reps in their shiny Mondeos and shinier suits, trying not to squash jaywalking, day-dreaming, buggy-pushing mums or rule-the-road cyclists, only to pick up mithering passengers who are convinced you are ten minutes late purely to spite them, is not my idea of fun.

A working night ferrying the drunk and the stoned through brick-wielding gangs of foul-mouthed pondlife is my idea of hell.

And anyone who can steer a 41-seater through our ancient narrow streets without skittling half a dozen streetlights deserves a medal. These guys can turn their buses on a sixpence.

By coincidence, that is also their hourly rate. I exaggerate. They actually earn fully £6.58. But that is still is a pitiful amount of money for men and women who take our lives in their hands to keep York moving.

Of course, it is not easy for the First bosses. Prof Stephen Hawking would struggle to draw up an efficient timetable for a city which slaps buses, wagons, cyclists, bikers, dustcarts, horse-drawn carriages and now motorised invalid buggies on the same few square feet of Tarmac. But the bosses are paid more than the drivers. And their arguments are flimsier.

After reading yesterday's head-to-head between the two sides of the strike, I soon decided to skip the bosses' bandwagon and hopped smartly aboard the union's fair-pay charabanc.

Eight pounds an hour is not too much to ask. It is the very least First should be paying. Ah, but hiking wages would force up fares, says First. Not necessarily. First Group announced profits of £216 million in May. It has enough cash to pay its directors up to £340,000 before perks. The money is there to pay the drivers more.

Indeed, First does pay the drivers more in Leeds. Aha, but we pay them less in Sheffield, proclaim the bosses, as if that is their trump card. Such a muddled and unfair pay structure only serves to support the unions' case.

Managers also point out that the shareholders wouldn't like York drivers to get eight quid an hour. Of course they wouldn't. All corporate shareholders view workers as a wretched drain on their dividends. How many First shareholders have been on a bus in their lives? How many shareholders could exist on a driver's salary of £12,500?

The problem for the drivers is that they are public servants working for a private company. They perform a job vital for the community, often on routes subsidised by the taxpayer, but their employer's priority is those grasping shareholders.

So here's a radical idea. Why can't City of York Council part fund the drivers' improved pay package?

If there is £3 million of transport cash available for a footbridge that York doesn't need, why can't some of this money be channelled into where it really could do some good: the bus workers' pockets?

There could hardly be a more practical example of public-private finance. It would certainly be a more useful transport initiative than those expensive computerised road signs which state the blindingly obvious: "Avoid traffic congestion. Walk." Wow, thanks guys - shall I abandon my car here or on the pavement?

The council should offer to help pay the drivers' wage rise, and First should accept. Because without the drivers on board, York's local transport plan is in the bus lane to oblivion.

Updated: 10:58 Wednesday, September 03, 2003