Editorial: Blame the bus company - not the drivers

The 80,000 Auckland bus passengers who had to find alternative means of getting to work yesterday had good reason to feel annoyed. Many, almost as a knee-jerk reaction, probably blamed the 900 drivers employed by NZ Bus for their difficulties.

If so, their anger was misdirected. Commuters were denied their customary ride to work not because of strike action but because the company chose to lock out the drivers after their trade unions had issued a work-to-rule notice. This was an over-the-top act, given the predictably chaotic consequences for the company's customers.

NZ Bus has clearly decided to go on the front foot in this dispute, after five months of unsuccessful pay negotiations. Whether because of the ideological bent of its owner, infrastructure investment company Infratil, or for purposes of strategy, it has elected, essentially, to get its retaliation in first.

This represents something of a novel twist in industrial relations. More customarily, employers are at the mercy of union action, and must wait for the hammer to fall. Employers rightly dislike the one-sided nature of this industrial roulette.

Unions wave such immediate threats around with little regard for a company's revenue. In this instance, NZ Bus has decided it will dictate the terms of a dispute.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, its action follows a lockout late last month at a Waikato dairy factory. Thirty-six workers, about half the permanent workforce at Talley's Waharoa cheese plant, were turned away after a pay disagreement.

The company's action undoubtedly inflamed the dispute, as did its introduction of outside workers to maintain the factory's output, leading to claims and counter-claims of industrial and environmental sabotage.

The use of the same tactic by NZ Bus is going to embitter proceedings, particularly because the unions had planned simply to work to rule.

This would have caused relatively minor inconvenience to passengers as drivers declined to operate buses with safety defects, or without working radio telephones, and drove to the speed limit, rather than stepping on it to keep up with their tight timetables.

Certainly, it would have been nowhere near as disruptive as the situation precipitated by the lockout. And just as unions deserve criticism when their activity grossly inconveniences the travelling public, so, too, do employers.

NZ Bus has also done itself no favours in the way that it has sought to portray its drivers. Its general operations manager, Zane Fulljames, has accused the unions of having no interest in settling the dispute responsibly.

It could be resolved very simply, he said, if they lifted their notice of strike action. This transparent attempt to turn irritated members of the public against the drivers does not deserve sympathy. A notice to work to rule is as far away from a notice of strike action as a lockout is from a reasoned and measured response to this dispute.

The company's offer of a 10.5 per cent pay increase over three years may or may not be, as it claims, "very substantive". What is certain is that the lockout will have hardened the resolve of the unions to strive for better.

The Tramways Union indicated yesterday that its members were in no mood to back down. That suggests worse may be ahead for commuters. They have been locked out of an essential service just as firmly as the drivers. Some, having found alternative means of commuting, may never return to the buses. The credibility of the public transport system will have been further damaged.

That image suffered four years ago when the bus drivers, then employed by Stagecoach, took unprecedented strike action in support of a pay claim. In that instance, the unions were out of line. This time, it is NZ Bus. It is in the interests of both to pay more attention to those who pay the biggest price.