Manawatu¯ bus drivers set to receive living wage

Manawatu¯ bus drivers may make a few more dollars each time their wheels go round, with moves under way to have them paid the living wage.

Horizons Regional Council staff submitted to their own LongTerm Plan on Wednesday, asking councillors to rate another $100,000 a year to ensure all drivers were paid the living wage.

The rate would only apply to communities where bus services operated, upping rates bills by about 0.16 per cent a year.

Horizons does not employ bus drivers.

Instead it tenders out contracts to commercial outfits to run bus services. It is a similar arrangement to what Wellington has, where drivers recently went on strike and were subsequently locked out after pay bargaining hit a brick wall.

NZ Bus, which runs the bus contract there, refused public money to top drivers’ pay up to the living wage, which increases by 65 cents to $22.75 in September.

Horizons information and services manager Ged Shirley said there was an expectation from the Government, albeit without a formal direction, to have all bus drivers on the living wage by the end of this year.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, which co-funds bus services, told Horizons it would pay for a share of the increased costs, Shirley said.

Transport manager Rhona Hewitt said not all drivers would get a pay increase, but there were some who were paid either the minimum wage or close to it.

Horizons councillor Emma Clarke was shocked to hear bus drivers could be paid minimum wage. ‘‘I find it mind-blowing there are bus drivers probably on minimum wage, when looking at truck drivers or agricultural operators who are on different classes of licence.’’

Councillor Allan Benbow said he wanted to know if the cost could be covered by higher bus fares rather than rates. Hewitt said Horizons had to review fares as part of its regional public transport plan in the next year.