Capital’s bus strike deferred
More than 100 people rallied in Wellington yesterday in support of bus drivers, despite the deferral of a planned strike.
The industrial action was to take place in the capital today but has now been delayed until Thursday and could last until November 30.
Despite the delay to the strike, the Save Our Bus Service Rally still went ahead at Cuba Mall yesterday.
Unions Wellington convener Ben Peterson said they called the rally to support bus drivers and protest the public transport system.
Rail and Maritime Transport Union member Howard Phillips was one of many to show his support.
‘‘People are obviously upset at the bus service being stuffed up but they equally understand that the people running the buses have been done over by the council.’’
In July, Wellington’s bus contracts were changed over and Tranzurban took over the majority of the region’s contracts from NZ Bus. Terms from the NZ Bus staff contracts, including penal rates, were not carried over.
Since then, Tranzurban and Tramways Union have been in a dispute about proposed new employment agreements.
A stopwork meeting was held between the two organisations last Friday. The union said its members employed by the two bus companies would strike as it did not believe discussions were
progressing.
Union secretary Kevin O’Sullivan said the strike would go ahead on Thursday, starting at 2am, with a proposed end date of November 30.
The Employment Relations Act (ERA) requires specific actions to be taken before a strike commences and O’Sullivan said the first notice they provided to Tranzurban had items in it that needed to be addressed.
On advice from lawyers, that notice was cancelled and then reissued last night to ensure it was accurate, pushing the strike from today to Thursday.
‘‘Because we’re not an essential service, the law says we have to give 24 hours’ notice [of strike action]. To cover off the fact that it’s a public holiday, we avoided any potential ability for the company to turn around and say we didn’t give them notice and we pushed [the strike] out,’’ O’Sullivan said.
Tranzurban managing director Paul Snelgrove said O’Sullivan’s demand ‘‘made no sense’’.
‘‘He expected Tranzurban drivers to attend a meeting to ratify an agreement with a different employer, all while our own negotiations with the union are ongoing.
‘‘When we met [with O’Sullivan] on Thursday to continue the scheduled bargaining process we’d all agreed on, he reiterated his ultimatum – send your drivers to the Friday meeting, with pay, and transport them to the meeting too, or face strike action.’’
A Tranzurban spokesman said a ‘‘legal loophole’’ O’Sullivan referred to earlier was instead a legal requirement: under the ERA, an end date for strike action needs to be provided with some certainty.
Tranzurban claims it pays Wellington drivers a standard rate of $22.20 an hour, above the living wage of $20.55.