Auckland bus strikes: wildcat drivers' protests feared to worsen

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Striking Waikato bus drivers in December whose dispute is one of several still simmering in the industry.

Wildcat protests by Auckland bus drivers are feared to worsen as their frustration rises over working conditions, in an industry facing a shortage of drivers.

Impromptu morning protests have hit three depots of operator NZ Bus in the past week after the company withdrew from a formal mediation session over conditions of work.

The Auckland dispute is the latest problem in the urban bus sector which is struggling to attract and retain staff, for work which can span 14 hours a day.

'They've had enough – I've got a feeling it's going to get worse,' said Gary Froggatt, the long-serving Auckland and national president of the Tramways Union.

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Froggatt said the union had advised its 1000 Auckland members to hold off on action, but the informal protests were a sign of frustration.

'Perhaps that's why they are not listening to (union) advice to wait until negotiations in November.'

Drivers can be rostered across 14 hours with two half-hour breaks, and work 5.5 hours unbroken. Split shifts can include a four-hour unpaid break.

'That's why people are not becoming bus drivers, and a lot leave to go to Australia,' said Froggatt.

He estimated NZ Bus was 40 drivers short in Auckland and believed other smaller companies faced similar difficulties.

Froggatt said the unions and NZ Bus were due to enter mediation before the Employment Relations Authority on January 30, but the company withdrew, saying it was too busy.

Auckland's other big operator, Ritchies, which has 800 drivers said numbers of drivers were 'tight.'

'People aren't staying as long as they used to, but it's been the same over the last 30 years,' said managing director Andrew Ritchie.

Ritchie said he himself had been due to drive services this morning, as do other managers.

He said the problem was aggravated by patronage growth, and new services contracted by the council agency Auckland Transport

'We're putting extra services on tomorrow, which is all well and good but someone's got to drive them - maybe 10 extra services,' he told Stuff.

In Hamilton, First Union said it was taking operator Go Bus to the ERA, after an agreement for higher pay rates reached in December did not eventuate.

'Drivers had been locked out for a week, and we signed the agreement for them to receive the Living Wage mid-this year,' said the union's transport divisional secretary Jared Abbott.

He said the Waikato Regional Council had agreed to fund its share of the $900,000 added cost, but NZTA had declined and Go Bus had not contributed.

That would have lifted drivers' hourly rates from $17-18.50 an hour, up to $20.55, said Abbott.

One driver who spoke to Stuff but didn't want to be named, said conditions of work were poor.

'There was a toilet we could use at the western end of the route, but in the city we were urinating in bottles or in the bushes,' he said.

On one long route with short turnaround times, he said the 5.5 hours at the wheel was often non-stop driving.

Both unions lay some of the troubles at the feet of the Government-imposed contracting regime called the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM), which requires companies to compete for long-term council contracts.

Froggatt said operators won by bidding low, and were then locked in with little room to pay more if the market demanded it.

'Each time we go into negotiations (with operators) they say we are happy to pay what you are asking, but only if all the other companies do the same,' he said.

'We are lobbying over driving hours and we'll be approaching [Transport Minister] Phil Twyford shortly – he has promised to look at it.'

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has encountered similar shortages, with contractor NZ Bus short of 48 drivers out of the 168 needed, to fully run the Tauranga-based Western Bay Services it took over in December.

A report to last week's Public Transport committee said the driver shortage was significant.

'NZ Bus is incentivising current staff to bring in other bus drivers they know through a staff referral scheme. The secondments of Auckland drivers to Tauranga have also been extended,' said the report .

The Council has received 365 complaints since December 10, 2018. Of these, one of the top reasons was that the bus service never ran or was late.

The industry body, the Bus and Coach Association, said the shortage had not changed over the past year or so.

'There are lots of other employment opportunities in the cities, and in Auckland the addition of services over the past three or four years has been significant,' said Barry Kidd, the CEO of the Association.

Twyford in late 2017 asked officials to review PTOM but his office said that work was still months away.

Auckland's commuter bus sector faces other changes, with NZ Bus in the process of being sold to Australian investor Next Capital, and long-established family-owned operator Birkenhead Transport on the market.

NZ Bus did not respond to questions from Stuff.