BIU president Chris Furbert has confirmed that bus drivers lost two days of pay when they were on strike last week.The Royal Gazette reported on Saturday that Mr Furbert agreed to the arbitration “on condition that Ms Harvey receives backdated pay. She remains out of a job, but she will be paid for the period of suspension until termination.”

Residents have repeatedly questioned whether the bus drivers were paid when they downed tools in support of their fired colleague Jennifer Harvey.

Ms Harvey lost her job for repeatedly failing to take a drugs test after being involved in an accident, which resulted in a passenger needing hospital treatment.

Bus drivers and mechanics were on strike from Wednesday to Friday, then returned to work on Saturday when the Department of Public Transportation and the BIU agreed to take the matter to an independent arbitration panel.

When asked at a press conference yesterday, Mr Furbert said: “The bus drivers were not paid.”

Mr Furbert then went on to complain about the media reporting that Ms Harvey was receiving full pay throughout the arbitration process. He told the press conference: “I don’t know where everyone’s got that from. That’s totally wrong. That’s not what I said, I don’t know how you misunderstood that.”

Mr Furbert said he’d even received an e-mail from Premier Paula Cox asking what he had told the media.

Mr Furbert said he wanted to make it clear that Ms Harvey was only being paid for her suspension period as Government has rejected the union request for her to be paid throughout the arbitration process.