Tender feelings in region’s bus chaos
The travelling public may think the Greater Wellington Regional Council has missed the bus when it comes to providing reliable public transport. However, any change in contractor will have teething troubles. Now is the union’s best chance to leverage on this and try to get greater membership and a collective agreement.
Reports of flaws in the new system are pouring in. Drivers don’t seem to know where they are going; it is said one paid a school student $5 to tell them where to go.
To be fair, the stories we hear are those of problems, not those of drivers who successfully negotiated their route on time.
Many new and inexperienced drivers have been employed by the new transport provider, Tranzit, after existing, experienced staff would not accept longer hours of work for lower pay.
Legislation plays a role in bus contracts changing hands. Councils have an obligation to ensure they run services efficiently and economically.
This is a positive thing – the competitive tender system promotes good use of public resources and prevents nepotism and corruption.
The risk when the lowest tender wins is that the operator will then need to drive down wages unfairly and perhaps reduce services to operate at such a low cost.
The Ministry of Social Development has admitted it played an ‘‘inappropriate role’’ by helping Tranzit recruit unemployed people as drivers to replace those who would not accept the lower wage on offer.
Sometimes governments protect those workers who stand to lose their jobs if contracts often change hands through tendering processes.
In 2004 the Labour Government instituted a protection for vulnerable workers in sectors where the contractor frequently changed and would take on only some of the former staff.
The initial focus was large cleaning contracts in public hospitals. Often a district health board is one of the largest employers in its region, so a huge number of cleaners were affected.
Many migrant workers carry out cleaning in hospitals where language skills and qualifications are not as critical as in other jobs. Because of this, workers had little bargaining power and could easily be replaced. Industrial action was difficult.
The then Government passed legislation so that if a contract changes, certain vulnerable workers have the right to transfer to the new contractor on the same terms and conditions.
The workers protected now include cleaners and caterers in any place of work, along with launderers for education, health or age-related residential care sector.
But the Employment Court has held that the legislation does not require workers to be vulnerable or low paid to be protected, ruling in favour of an airline chef who earned $87,000.
Bus drivers are clearly not protected when contracts change.
The drivers who didn’t accept Tranzit’s terms have been replaced. However, it seems Tranzit’s new workforce already has some appetite to bargain for better terms.
Drivers in the Hutt Valley are cutting their shifts to a standard eight-hour day after being made to work 14-hour shifts.
The regional council will be keeping a close watch on the buses. After all, they gave Tranzit the contract and will eventually have to face the disgruntled voters.
The new bus system’s teething problems may be partly due to many new drivers and should improve given time. Assuming this happens relatively quickly, Tranzit’s problems are unlikely to really affect the regional councillors.
The union is already looking for change. It will want to negotiate better conditions while Tranzit is vulnerable and before the current terms and conditions are set in concrete.
The next month will be crucial but although problems are continuing it seems to me they are diminishing and the concrete is setting.