Bus company workers call stop-work

Press, 5 March 1987, Page 2

Bus company workers call stop-work

All Christchurch employees of the bus company, H and H Travel Lines, have been called to a stop-work meeting this morning over a redundancy offer. The Invercargill-based company has called for 12 volunteers for redundancy, out of a workforce of about 25. Drivers, engineers, and clerical union workers are involved. However, the Engineers’ Union was “a bit disturbed, because it is

not redundancy in the true sense of the word,” said the Canterbury branch secretary, Mr Bob Todd.

He accused the company of trying to terminate permanent em-

ployees’ employment “by devious means” to run the business with predominantly part-time or casual labour. The unions involved had called a joint stopwork meeting at 8 a.m. today, he said. H and H Travel Lines runs scheduled and charter services throughout the South Island, including a daily main trunk service between Picton and Invercargill. The firm was bought by the Mount Cook Group last October. Neither the chief executive of H and H, Mr Doug Moir, nor the Mount Cook public affairs manager, Mr Ted Becket, could be reached yesterday for comment.