Striking Canterbury drivers to meet today

Press, 12 July 1979, Page 1

Striking Canterbury drivers to meet today

Canterbury drivers will hold meetings today to de-

cide on a recommendation by their executive that they return to work from midnight tonight, to allow conciliation talks on the general drivers’ award to resume tomorrow. Christchurch drivers will meet in the Town Hall at 10 a.m. They will be addressed by Mr K. G. Douglas, president of the Drivers’ Federation and newly elected secretary of the Federation of Labour. Meetings of drivers in other Canterbury centres will be held during the afternoon, but the voting will be decided on a union basis. If the drivers decide to return to work at midnight, they will have been on strike for three days, instead of the five that they originally voted for. Newmans coaches in Nelson and Marlborough have not been disrupted by the strike, but one did not get away from Christchurch yesterday because it was prevented from leaving by a picket. The Christchurch man-

ager of Newmans (Mr R.

M. Reader) said that the company had to offer

work to its drivers because if it did not it would be guilty of locking them out. The drivers reported for duty, in spite of a decision by the coach drivers of Christchurch that they support the general drivers. Mr Reader said that few passengers were in the coach stopped by the picket; they were transferred to a rental car and taken north.

Mr P. R. Ligget, secretary of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union, said that he thought there would be a reaction by the drivers at the meeting today to the action by Newmans drivers.

“They may set some policy for next week,” he said.

Mr Liggett said that Newmans drivers were the only Christchurch drivers who had continued working.

The Press Association reports from Auckland that all except one private bus company service in the region will resume at dawn today. At Birkenhead, on Auckland’s North Shore, 20 drivers turned up for work yesterday and nor-

mal services resumed. But by 10 a.m. officials of the Northern Drivers’ Union were on the scene and the drivers struck for another 24 hours. In Wellington, the Drivers’ Union action committee held a meeting yesterday and decided that the 48-hour stoppage would run its course, meaning that private bus services, petrol deliveries, and general goods deliveries could not resume before midnight last night. Mr Douglas said in Wellington yesterday that there had been some “media misinterpretation” of the agreement reached when the Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger) met the president of the Federation of Labour (Mr W. J. Knox) and other officials on Tuesday. “The proposition agreed to was that there would be no continuing action, pending conciliation tomorrow, after the end of the present stoppage,” Mr Douglas said. The president of the Wholesale Grocery Distributors’ Federation (Mr R. W. Thomas) said yesterday that some groceries would inevitably be

scarce because of the strike. The police were called to the Red Bus depot at Gisborne yesterday afternoon after a big group of angry drivers went there to protest against a return to work by company staff in the morning. After the police spoke to the drivers’ leaders they dispersed peacefully. Senior-Sergeant R. H. Mac Murray .said that the police were called after reports that tyres had been let down. No arrest was made.