BUS DRIVERS’ DISPUTE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 12, 15 January 1944, Page 4

BUS DRIVERS’ DISPUTE

ULTIMATUMS AT STOPWORX MEETING (P.A.) Auckland. Jan. 14 No buses will run within a- 25mile radius of Auckland Chief Pos’t Office next Sunday. If within seven days from to-day the dispute between the Auckland omnibus drivers and proprietors concerning double time for Sunday work is not settled all buses within a 25-mile radius will running. If the section of the Drivers’ Union within the area covered by the Government’s deregistration order is not re-registered by the Government within 10 days a further stop-work meeting of the Auckland drivers will be called. These three ultimatums were given by a stopwork meeting of the union held in Auckland Town Hall this morning, attended by about 1500 drivers. The meeting was the latest development in the bus dispute. At one stage of the meeting a motion was proposed for a general drivers’ strike, starting next Sunday, but it was defeated in favour of a more moderate amendment covering the bus drivers only. During the two-hour period when the meeting was in progress onlt trucks driven by owner-drivers were on the roads or streets in Auckland. About 70 buses were lined up at the transport terminal outside the Town Hall. There were hundreds of trucks and delivery vans. About a dozen women drivers were among those who attended the meeting, which was presided over by the president of the union, Mr. E. Taylor, and was briefly addressed also by the union secretary’, Mr. L. G. Matthews, and the union organiser, Mr. F. D. Muller. The meeting was marked by severe criticism of the action of the Minister of Labour regarding the dispute.