The Tramways Union sought to pressure drivers into taking the pro-company deal by telling them it was the best they would get, and that strike action would be useless. We told : if they try and remove anything from our contract, just tell them we’ll go on strike.” Despite having a clear mandate for industrial action, none has been called. “To even present to us that last package just blew my mind,” James said, “because drivers had been quite forceful in rejecting the previous one. I have no faith that they wouldn’t have kept all those part-time shifts and made all the full time shifts into 12-hour shifts. “There are no guarantees anywhere that they would create even one full-time shift. James pointed out that in the 1990s almost all bus drivers worked full-time, but now there are many part-timers. The rejected offer would have allowed NZ Bus to make a driver “work four hours and go on a break for four hours, and when they come back, do another four hours,” James said. It included “a clause that said an eight-hour shift could be worked over a 12-hour period,” instead of the current maximum of 11 hours. ![]() Successive companies that have operated Wellington buses since they were first privatised by the council in 1992 have wanted to get rid of the allowance.ĭrivers were particularly angry that the proposed deal would have lengthened the working day, which can already be very long. Many drivers have to travel considerable distances early in the morning. “I know that there are a number of drivers that rely quite heavily on that, and there’s no other way to get to work,” James said. ![]() The union also agreed with NZ Bus to end allowances for drivers to take taxis to work. Thanks to the GWRC’s wage subsidy, NZ Bus would save $2.50 an hour from its wages bill for weekend shifts: the company would only have to top up James’ Sunday wages by $17.90, instead of the current $20.40. Under the proposal, he would have lost 80 cents an hour on Sundays and 60 cents on Saturdays. “We had made a very clear statement to our union executive that the first thing we would never do was to give up any of our conditions, and the offer was a considerable reduction in our conditions.”ĭespite decades of experience, James still makes only $20.40 an hour. “I took one look at the offer… I honestly couldn’t believe that it was being presented to us,” he said. Instead, they were given selected highlights of the change. The union did not show workers the full proposed contract. The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke with a senior Wellington bus driver, who we will call James (not his real name), about why the union-backed offer was rejected. ![]() In every country, the main obstacle is the trade unions, which are working to suppress opposition to pro-corporate restructuring and austerity. In New Zealand, the Labour Party-led government’s wage freeze has led to a nationwide strike by healthcare workers. The stand taken by the drivers is part of a growing fightback by workers internationally. Taken as a whole, the deal would have essentially frozen wages, while the cost-of-living soars, especially housing costs. This would have reduced to $40 an hour on Sundays and $30 on Saturdays. Currently, drivers are paid double time on Sunday and time-and-a-half for Saturdays and overtime. The small increase was to be accompanied by cuts to overtime and weekend penalty rates. It would have increased wages to $22.10 per hour, funded not by NZ Bus, but by a subsidy from the Labour Party-led Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), which contracts NZ Bus and other private companies to provide bus services. Only some details of the rejected offer were made public. Since then, the media and the union have remained silent, as union officials re-entered negotiations, keeping workers in the dark. It was the third offer rejected by the drivers, who are among the lowest-paid workers in New Zealand, many receiving the minimum wage of $20 an hour or less. On June 23, hundreds of NZ Bus drivers in Wellington voted to reject a sellout deal hatched between the company and the Tramways Union.
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