Bus service upsets rail union

Press, 5 November 1984, Page 4

Bus service upsets rail union

By

MICHAEL HANNAH

in Wellington Dissatisfaction with the Railways Corporation’s involvement in bus services emerged early in the Railways summit conference, held in Wellington at the week-end.

The Locomotive Engineers’ Association’s general secretary, Mr Dick Williams, said that his members would prefer to see the Railways develop as a railway system, and not as a bus operation. However, as the Railways was already “in the system” Mr Williams conceded that to withdraw from bus operations would be radical and unacceptable. But he advised the corporation that, if it had to run a bus system, it should be in ccompetition with the Railways’ rivals, and not with the Railways itself. In his opening remarks at the start of the conference on Saturday, Mr Williams

said that the association saw the Railways’ future, and New. Zealand’s future, in an integrated transport system with the Railways as the major operator. To be an effective operator, the corporation had to show itself to be efficient, reliable, and worthy of the title, “No. 1 in freight,” he said. He argued for special treatment for the Railways from the Government, maintaining that the Corporation did not necessarily have too many staff.

“Look at Air New Zealand. They are trying to recruit those specialists whom they made redundant several years ago,” he said. He said that the BoozAllen and Hamilton consultancy report on the Railways had led to uncertainty and rumours.

“It is the contention of this association that the report has resulted in a lack of communication between unions and management,”

he said. He said that the unions had a role to play in arriving at new decisions, and he criticised the delay of almost two years in formulating a new training programme for locomotive staff.

Mr Williams’ argument was taken up by other representatives of Railways’ employees at the start of the conference. They blamed the Booz-Allen and Hamilton report for a loss of morale among the Railways’ staff, and urged the Government and the corporation to listen to the workers in forming strategies for the future. However, the National Union of Railwaymen, representing more workers than any other Railways union, stuck to its threat not to participate formally in the conference. A speaking slot for a representative of the union was left unfilled. The president of the Rail-

way Officers’ Institute, Mr David Burgess, said that a period of indecision had fallen on the Railways as a result of the Booz-Allen and Hamilton report, the hostile attitude to the Railways by the previous Government, and the effects of the General Election and subsequent change of Government.

If the board and management did not act quickly, the Railways would continue to lose many of its bright young people because of uncertainty, said Mr Burgess.

He called for a positive spirit to emerge from the conference, • predicting otherwise that the Railways would lose in the face of competition from other transport.

A similar call came from Mr Ron Bell, national president of the Railway Tradesmen’s Association.

“In practical terms what we want, and expect, from

this conference is a positive stance. We have not come here to mourn the passing of the Railways,” he said. Mr Bell called for railway users to increase their use of the Railways. “It is a well known fact that the greater the use of a transport system, the more economic it becomes and the better its service can be. Empty trains don’t make profits,” he said.

Empty trains running alongside “congested, overcrowded, polluted, dangerfilled highways” was a “sad waste” of New Zealand resources, he said.

The Railways could contribute to savings ,in imported fuels, as well as to a cleaner environment, said Mr Bell.

He urged the Government not to hide behind the corporation when there were difficult decisions to be made, and not to flinch from its political responsibility.