BUS DRIVERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22774, 7 July 1937, Page 14

BUS DRIVERS

CLAIMS FOR AWARD MARKED WAGE INCREASES EFFECTS ON SERVICES Claims for a new Dominion award for passenger bus drivers circulated by the New Zealand Federated Drivers and Related Trades' Association of Workers are for rates of pay considerably in excess of those ruling and also are for altered conditions of work. According to employers, the claims if granted would impose a big financial burden on the industry which could only be met by general increases in fares. Passenger transport drivers in April of last year were given a new award, under which they worked a 96-hour fortnight, with wages of £4 12s 6d a week. In July of that year the weekly wage under the 1931 scale instituted by the Finance Act rose to £5 a week and subsequently the hours wero reduced to 40 a week. The new demands provide for £6 a week for ordinary drivers, with an additional 10s if fares are collected by the driver, a provision said to affect most drivers. This would mean an hourly wago for drivers who collect fares of 3s 3d, compared with 2s Gd now paid and Is Hid under the last award, an increase of 62J per cent.

Further, the claim is now mado for double rates for Sunday work, in addition to the weekly wage, which, for an eight-hour day at 6s 6d an hour would bring the weekly wage to £9 2s. There are other demands for 2s (id a day extra if a driver is on broken shifts and double time rates after midnight.

According to an employer 50 per cent of the cost of maintaining bus services is represented by labour under the present scale of wages.