Bus firms defy order to stop work

Press, 29 April 1978, Page 3

Bus firms defy order to stop work

From Front Page Bus drivers employed by Bonici Motors, (a subsidiary of Trans Holdings) and the Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company have again defied the Canterbury Drivers’ Union. They stayed away from yesterday’s stop-work meeting, and will continue to work this week-end in spite of the majority decision of the union to strike until Monday. During the strike by coach drivers last October the same drivers rebelled against a majority decision, and incurred the wrath of other drivers, particularly those at Newman’s and Midland, who complied. The secretary of the union (Mr P. R. Liggett) said in October that “drastic action” would be taken against drivers who did not comply with the majority decision. The president of the union (Mr D. Cunninghame), a driver for Midland said yesterday that because of the refusal of the Mount Cook and Bonici drivers to attend the meeting or to comply with any strike, drivers at Midland feared that if they went on strike their work would be taken by the other companies.

Asked why the bus drivers except himself, as president) did not attend yesterday’s meeting, Mr Cunninghame said that the carriage of passengers was an essential industry under the Industrial Relations Act, and required 14 days notice of industrial action. The stopwork meeting would have been illegal. When it was put to him that the other drivers might also be acting illegally because only two stop-work meetings a year are permitted, Mr Cunninghame said that the bus drivers would have been in breach of a statute, whereas the other drivers might be in breach of their awards.

Asked why the rebel bus drivers could not be blacklisted, Mr Cunninghame said that this would require national action because the companies covered areas outside the Canterbury union. He said that the matter might be raised at the annual conference of the Federation of Labour next week.