Bus stoppage again today

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 1

Bus stoppage again today

By GLENN HASZARD, industrial reporter The big red buses of the Christchurch Transport Board will not be running again today, for the second consecutive day and for the fifth day in the last month. It will mean that about 20,000 people in the city and surrounding districts who rely on the buses to get to and from work or to do their shopping or visiting will have to find other forms of transport. Buses are not expected to run all this week and may not run next week either, unless the Government intervenes by calling a compulsory conference to settle

the dispute between the Tramway Workers’ Union and the employers over a union claim for an industry allowance. . The Minister of. Labour, Mr Rodger, is overseas. The Acting Minister, Mr Burke, said .yesterday that he would speak to the union and employer representatives today. There is a precedent in the industry for a compulsory -conference. One was called in September this year after a similar dispute with strikes and an eightday lock-out in Auckland, involving the same union

and the Auckland Regional Authority. Mr Burke earlier this week asked the Labour Department to see if it could negotiate agreed terms of reference for a compulsory conference, but that proved impossible. The department is reluctant to advise the Minister to call a compulsory conference unless the parties agree to terms of reference, because if a chairman of such a conference makes a binding decision there is doubt about sanctions with which to enforce an imposed settlement. While the Minister does

have the power to deregister a union — and a Labour Government has in the past used the power — it is thought unlikely that the Government would use this ultimate weapon in this dispute. The secretary of the Tramway Workers’ Union, Mr Henry Stubbs, at least, is confident the weapon will not be used against his union.

Buses are off the road in Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin, Invercargill, and New Plymouth. The union’s co-ordinating action committee yesterday decided on an indefinite strike in all four centres outside Christchurch in retaliation for what they saw as a “lockout” by the Christchurch Transport Board. The board’s general manager, Mr Max Taylor,

sent a letter to the secretary of the Christchurch branch of the union yesterday. He advised the branch that the board would not accept a return to work from yesterday’s 24-hour strike unless the secretary gave an assurance on behalf of the union members that the return to work would be without any restrictions on attendance or performance of work. The secretary, Mr Charlie Gower, said after a branch executive meeting early last evening that no assurances would be given. In a letter to members of the board, Mr Taylor said that the situation could no longer be tolerated. “It is with deep regret that I take this action, which will, almost certainly, deprive the public of their

bus service for a greater or lesser time, and, also, will result in financial loss — hardship even — for many loyal employees of the board and their families.” Mr Gower said that about 280 members of the branch met at the Repertory Theatre yesterday and endorsed the actions of its executive so far in the dispute and resolved to continue the dispute in spite of what the members saw as a lock-out threat. They also wanted the executive to consider ways of continuing the dispute into the New Year if it was not settled in the next few weeks. A welfare committee of the union has been distributing grocery vouchers in the last few weeks and yesterday about 250 packs of meat were given out to members,

Sd for from the welfare d.

Mr Gower said that each member of the union had to belong to the welfare society which administered the fund, and paid a few cents a week into it. The money from the fund was used for such things as work-related traffic fines and legal expenses, as well as for paying bills or helping members with other financial difficulties. Mr Gower-said that the union saw nothing restrictive about what its members had been doing. The ban on overtime was only on voluntary overtime. Members were working to the award. The Christchurch Transport Board had cancelled meetings of the scheduling committee which had union representation and had subsequently changed rosters of its own accord.

Mr Gower said that the union then went through the rosters and found some that were in breach of the award, because the award provided that drivers should work a maximum of 4% hours without a meal break, but up to five hours with the agreement of the. union. Since the j scheduling committee no longer met, the union felt that its agreement had also lapsed, and so drivers were refusing to work longer than 4% hours without a meal. The union claim for an industry allowance first emerged as a simple pay rise claim by the Christchurch branch. It was rejected by the Christchurch Transport Board -in September. In October, it re-emerged as a claim which would apply to the 2000 union members in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, New Plymouth, and Auckland. Mr Stubbs said in October that since December, 1981, bus drivers’ wages had fallen 26.4 per cent against the consumers’ price index. To redress that, drivers would require a $67.85 increase. However, the union had taken as its starting point July 14, 1984, the date Labour came to office. Since then the loss in real wages had been 12.6 per cent, requiring $32.38 to catch up. The employers have steadfastly opposed agreeing to discuss the validity of

the $32 a week claim. They say that the union has agreed in the past to have .wages State-linked, so that members get wages in line with State employees as they catch up with the private sector after general adjustments. They say that claims for allowances should be discussed in conciliation talks on the national award and not before. The Auckland branch of the union is not directly involved in this campaigns even though its 1000 members would get the industry allowance. Mr Gower said that the Auckland branch was not taking part in the campaign because it had already had a long dispute with the Auckland Regional Authority in August in a claim for an articulated bus payment Mr Gower said that Auckland union members were now reorganising a regrouping after their struggle, from which they had made significant gains. They won an increase to $5 a day for those who drive the articulated buses, and all operators won a $l3 a day payment because of the increased productivity brought about by the use of articulated buses, which carry big loads of passengers. The dispute was settled by a compulsory conference chaired by an Auckland mediator, Miss Janet Scott Mr Gower said that the payments to Auckland members of the union were made under an agreement made outside the national award. There was no doubt that the Auckland success had played a part in the thinking of the union about the possibility of negotiating increased payments outside the award, said Mr Gower. Mr Taylor said that the Auckland agreement was a purely local one because Auckland was the only authority with articulated buses. The employers had tried to get a clause in the national award in 1980, but the union had not agreed to it He said that he could not see the logic in the $l3 a day payment decision of Miss Scott’s. He said that the Auckland agreement had no relevance to the dispute over an industry allowance.