Drivers turn down final wage offer

Press, 18 July 1979, Page 1

Drivers turn down final wage offer

PA Wellington Drivers have rejected their employers’ new final wage offer of a 9.5 per cent increase. The employers said that when conciliation resumed yesterday for the general drivers’ negotiations, they increased their offer to 9.5 per cent, which would have meant a mean minimum increase of between $ll and $l3 a week for 40 hours, depending on classification. “The significant movement in the offer was the incorporation of service payments into the hourly rate,’’ said the employers’ advocate, Mr J. Beattie. “Whatever the Drivers’ Federation may say, road transport is a high overtime industry,” he said. The effect of the revised

offer, which was presented as a package to drivers, was to give the average driver who works eight to 10 hours overtime a week an increase of between 12 and 12.5 per cent in earnings. “The driver working 25 hours overtime a week could have earned an additional $32 to $44 a week, depending on length of service with the same employer,” Mr Beattie said. The principal changes to the last offer made by the employers were: — An increase in the wage-rate offer. — Incorporation of the service allowances into the hourly rate for overtime purposes. — An increase in the offer on allowances.

— New allowances for crane activities and con-tainer-handling vehicles. “The offer can only be seen as a fair one,” Mr Beattie said. “It would have cost the road transport industry an additional S22M in wages over the next year, and would have given" the average driver earnings of $10,250 a year. “The industry would have been irresponsible to itself and the economy to concede anything more than the offer. The employers are concerned that any higher settlement would have seriously prejudiced jobs in the industry,” he said.

Employers and drivers were still “a considerable ■way apart,” said the president of the Drivers’ Federation (Mr K. G. Douglas) last evening. The employers’ final offer had been rejected on six points, including the general wage level offered — which would have left drivers behind other transport workers because of relativitv losses — and lack of adequate safeguards on redundancy A substantial number of workers would have received less than the offered increase. Mr Douglas said. Some improvement- had been offered in prepared to coms up to the game level reeved bv

other transport industry ! workers. Conciliation had now been adjourned sine die, and the drivers’ national council had formulated a proposal to be discussed with the Federation of Labour, he said. A decision from that meeting would be given to the employers within the next few days, Mr Douglas said. The matter would also be reported to union members throughout New Zealand, seeking endorsement of specific Drivers’ Federation proposals. Additional i n d u s t - rial action would depend on the outcome of F.O.L. discussions and the report to members. The Drivers’ Federation advocate in the award talks Mr R. J. Campbell, said strikes over the award impasse were likely, but policy would he reviewed after the FOL, wage policy meeting th£ week.