Tauranga Bay Hopper drivers anxious about jobs

Allan Mathews, bus driver and First Union delegate for Tauranga's Bay Hopper drivers. Photo/Andrew Warner

Tauranga's Bay Hopper bus drivers are anxiously waiting to hear whether they will still have jobs after being told another bus company had won the contract to operate the service.

First Union delegate for the Tauranga drivers, Allan Mathews, said all the drivers had received a memo from their employer Go Bus saying the new contract had been won by NZ Bus.

The memo said Go Bus' contracts with the Bay of Plenty Regional Council would expire on December 9. It did not affect the Katikati or Te Puke operations.

Mathews said Go Bus would try to redeploy as many staff as possible, but in the meantime drivers were in the dark about what plans NZ Bus had for staffing its new contract with the council.

''We have nothing on which to base our futures. We are talking about whether people will be able to look after their families and afford rents next year.

''It behoves the company to communicate with staff as soon as possible - we are desperate to hear,'' he said.

When the Bay of Plenty Times emailed these concerns and other questions to NZ Bus chief executive Zane Fulljames, he replied that it would be inappropriate to make any comments at this stage of the tender process.

The regional council's transport manager, Garry Maloney, said on Wednesday there was a preferred tender and they were clarifying a few points in order to formally award the contract. When that was done, a formal announcement would be made.

The regional council's public transport committee chairman, Lyall Thurston, declined to confirm what the drivers had been told.

Go Bus managing director Calum Haslop also declined to comment. However, his memo to staff said losing the contract had been a huge disappointment, having successfully run the services since 2009 and increased patronage by 40 per cent.

''There is always a real risk that you will lose a contract to a lower priced alternative at some stage. While I know it's of little comfort to our Tauranga team, any loss must be taken in the context of the numerous gains we have made as a company elsewhere.''

Haslop wrote that Go Bus would be working hard to redeploy as many staff as possible over the next few months, together with redeploying the Tauranga fleet.

His memo was supplied to the Bay of Plenty Times by Mathews.

Mathews said there had been disappointment among drivers at the council's decision after the union had won a hefty 6.25 per cent wage rise from Go Bus to bring their hourly rate up to $18.25 an hour.

He said $18.25 still meant drivers had to work more than 40 hours a week to survive, but quite a lot no longer needed to visit the foodbank.

''Go Bus were extremely good and listened hard to the drivers ... having reached that point, we were disappointed with the council's decision.''

Mathews said First Union had also successfully persuaded the council to put extra weighting on tenders that matched or bettered the drivers' current rates of pay when it re-tendered its bus contracts. He presumed that this had happened with the NZ Bus tender.

Thirty-six of the 70 Go Bus drivers were covered by First Union.

First Union assistant general secretary Louisa Jones said NZ Bus had been given a long lead-in time. She hoped that the company would employ the Go Bus drivers and offer them better terms and conditions.

''It is not the role of councils to undercut the terms and conditions of bus drivers.''

New Zealand Tramways Union Wellington branch secretary Kevin O'Sullivan said NZ Bus told him on Tuesday that it had won the Bay of Plenty contact and would be needing 80 buses.

O'Sullivan said NZ Bus had been very progressive in wanting to introduce new technologies into its fleet. In Wellington the company was retrofitting its buses to run on batteries, with a small turbine on the roof to charge the batteries.