Bus drivers to stop work for pay talks

Auckland bus passengers may be in for a bumpy ride if drivers reject a pay offer at stopwork meetings next week.

NZ Bus is preparing for disruption to off-peak services for North Shore passengers for four hours on Tuesday, and for its regional operations through much of the rest of Auckland for a similar duration on Thursday.

The company said yesterday that its North Shore buses would be off the road from 9.30am until 1.30.pm on Tuesday, to allow a meeting of the Akarana Drivers' Association, although Orewa services would keep running.

Orewa buses and those of the company's Metrolink, Waka Pacific and Go West operations through the rest of Auckland will be grounded for four hours from 9.30am on Thursday, for meetings of the majority Tramways Union.

School runs and the Link and City Circuit routes will be unaffected, and the stopwork meetings for 872 drivers and cleaners represented by four bus unions have been timed to avoid peak hours for commuters.

Northern Express buses, run by Ritchies Transport, will keep running.

But there appears to be a considerable gap between an offer by NZ Bus of a 3.5 per cent wage rise and what the unions are seeking. That is believed to include a 6.8 per cent wage rise, and a restoration of overtime and penal rates to ordinary time and a half - up from the current time and a quarter.

Lead union negotiator Stu Harper, president of the 220 or so Akarana drivers, said yesterday he was not prepared to comment on the company's offer until hearing what the workers had to say about it at next week's meetings.

His combined unions negotiating team is understood to have decided against making any recommendations, either for or against the offer, to the workers.

But Auckland Tramways Union spokesman Gary Froggatt - representing just over 600 of the drivers - said the offer was from a low hourly starting rate of just over $14, which rises to $15.30 after several months on the road.

"I think it's appalling for the responsibility bus drivers have," Mr Froggatt said of the existing rates, which include split shifts spanning 14 hours a day.

Of the claim for a higher penal rate, he said it was nothing more than the company's Wellington drivers received.

Even so, he hoped the offer could be improved and a new collective employment contract settled "without having to take industrial action".

Although drivers' previous pay round was wrapped up without any strife two years ago, Auckland bus patronage received a bad knock in 2005 from a bitter industrial dispute which included a six-day strike.

NZ Bus operations chief Zane Fulljames said the company apologised for any inconvenience from next week's disruption, but trusted that it had given its customers enough advance notice to allow them to make alternative travel arrangements.

BUS STOP

TUESDAY
9.30am-1.30pm - North Star North Shore services.

THURSDAY
9.30am-1.30pm - North Star Orewa, Metrolink (central), Waka Pacific (southern and eastern) and Go West services.