Buses off at noon Friday

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34022, 11 December 1975, Page 18

Buses off at noon Friday

Christchurch buses will be off the road from noon on Friday, when drivers will hold a stopwork meeting to discuss a break-down in award negotiations with the employers. The secretary of the Christchurch branch of the Tramway Workers’ Union (Mr K. A Chailenderi *aid

iast evening that the executive could not comment further on the likely outcome of the meeting. The award talks broke down in Wellington on Monday w hen the union withdrew its claim from conciliation council. It did this because ’he employers were demandng that the new award make provision for part-time workers, which the employers said could save public transport services thousands of dollars each year if part-time drivers were used in the rush hour. The union has refused to accept these terms and says oart-time workers never had and never will have a place n its award The chairman of the Christchurch Transport Board (Mr M. O. Holdsworth) -aid vesterdav that “speaking as the public’s representative" all he wanted to see was a “fair settlement.’’ He said he was sorry that the union had withdrawn its claim as this was the only reasonable option open when two sides disagreed on an industrial dispute. “The situation that had been reached when the union withdrew its claim was that the cost for our own board would have amounted to more than $300,000. “When allowance is made for this on top of what we are already estimating for next year the rise in our wage cost would be 22 per cent.’’ said Mr Holdsworth. Mr Chailender said the union did not wish to comment on this statement until after Friday’s stop-work meeting