NO BUSES RUNNING

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 63, 12 September 1945, Page 8

NO BUSES RUNNING

STRIKE IN AUCKLAND

MEN MEETING TODAY P.A. AUCKLAND. September 12. Auckland's 300 bus drivers went on strike tonight shortly after 6.30, stopping all passenger bus services in the city and suburbs, including North Shore. An emergency . meeting of representatives of the drivers was held tonight to consider a last-minute suggestion from the Acting Minister of Labour, but this was stated after consideration to be unacceptable, and was rejected. A general meeting of bus [drivers will be held in the Trades Hall tomorrow morning, when the men will decide upon their future action.

When the appointment of Mr. J. A. Gilmour as chairman of the tribunal was conveyed tc the executive of the Auckland Drivers' Union this afternoon, the union communicated with the Minister expressing its desire to meet the employers' representatives as early as possible. A request was also made that Mr. Gilmour should be in Auckland by tomorrow morning. The secretary of the union, L. G. Matthews, said tonight that an endeavour had been made through the Department of Labour to arrange for the parties to meet tomorrow, but no progress had been made in that direction. It therefore followed, in accordance with the resolution unanimously passed by the executive committee on the previous day, that the buses would remain idle until the tribunal met. Since two of the three employers' assessors, Mr. A. S. Bailey and Mr. T. H. Bonnett, were in Wellington attending a sitting of the Conciliation Council to consider claims for a Dominion award, the union's suggestion that two other representatives should be appointed was still open, said Mr. Matthews. In these alternative appointments lay the only hope for bringing the strike to an immediate conclusion.

An unusually large number of passengers crowded the last buses, which left the city just after 6 o'clock this evening.