Union, company in last-ditch talks to avoid bus lock-out

A last ditch bid to try to avert tomorrow's lock-out of Auckland bus drivers, affecting thousands of commuters, is being held this morning.

Union leaders and Infratil-owned New Zealand Bus representatives will meet with a mediator to try to hammer out a settlement to the pay dispute.

The bus drivers last weekend announced a work-to-rule from tomorrow and their employer responded saying that they would be locked out if they turned up for work.

Drivers' spokesman and National Distribution Union secretary Karl Andersen said yesterday that workers would turn up for work as usual tomorrow.

A lock-out would plunge Auckland's public transport system and the daily travel plans of up to 80,000 commuters into chaos.

The lock-out would affect staff at the Metrolink, Go West, Waka Pacific, North Star, Link and city circuit bus services.

Union members have rejected annual increases over the next three years, of 3.5 percent, 3 percent, and 3.4 percent.

Mr Andersen said the drivers had already cut their pay claim from $1 an hour to 70 cents an hour, while the company had increased its starting offer by just 7 cents an hour over a three-year period.

"We've been trying to renegotiate the collective agreement since early June," he said.

"We've made substantial concessions in what we're claiming, and now there's only 10 cents an hour between our position and theirs.

"Now, when we say we're going to take some very minor industrial action, they say they're going to lock these workers out," he said.

Drivers earned between $14.05 and $16.75 an hour, with many working split-shifts, spending up to four unpaid hours a day waiting for the next part of their shift to start. They got an allowance of just $4.12 for these broken shifts.

NZ bus operations general manager Zane Fulljames said any action would "inconvenience" customers.

"We have communicated very clearly with the union and told them if they took industrial action, it would inconvenience our customers and that would be unacceptable to us,"

Mr Fulljames said he thought 9.9 percent over three years was a fair one in the current economic climate.

The workers gave notice of a work-to-rule last week, meaning they would "stick to the manual" and not doing anything extra, like skipping breaks when buses were running late.

They also said they would not send computer information to inform waiting passengers where the bus was, and would not do the last run of the shift if they were running late.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee called for restraint from both sides, but accused the company of over-reacting to the low-level industrial action.

There seemed to be major problems in trying to run the public transport system for Auckland from Infratil's Wellington-based offices, he said.

"If someone in a boardroom on The Terrace in Wellington is going to lock out the people driving our buses, causing a huge amount of inconvenience, that's not very helpful at all."

Infratil's operating revenue was up 28 percent, and public transport use in Auckland was at a 25-year high.

NZ Bus said Auckland passenger numbers rose 6.9 percent in the year to July.

NZPA