'No guarantee' bus drivers will come back to work after Christchurch meeting

Wednesday, 19 October 2022

Drivers are feeling angry seeing colleagues in other regions get pay rises, a union organiser says.

In recent months, councils across the country have green-lit big pay rises for bus drivers, but Canterbury drivers have been left in the dust.

Bus drivers in Canterbury are paid less than their colleagues just a couple of hours down the road. With no sign of a rise on the horizon, the drivers may take industrial action.

The drivers have a stop work meeting on October 27, according to Lindsay Chappell of the Amalgamated Workers Union NZ (AWUNZ), during which they may vote on strike action.

“Drivers here are pretty angry,” Chappell said. “No guarantee the industry will be coming back to work after the meeting.

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In 2021 Wellington bus drivers went on strike, but Christchurch’s was called off.

“They’re frustrated at the inaction. We’re over the [council’s] ongoing discussions. In the meantime councils in Otago and Auckland are getting on with it.”

The meeting was the same day the freshly elected Environment Canterbury (ECan) councillors would meet for their inaugural council meeting.

Ecan chief executive Stefanie Rixecker was asked if a wage increase would be recommended to council before the end of the year, and if she was concerned about losing drivers to better paying regions, but a spokesperson said she was too busy inducting the new councillors to comment on Wednesday.

The Otago Regional Council made a surprise announcement on September 30 that their drivers would get a boost to $27.76 an hour.

Earlier in September, Auckland Transport announced their drivers would be paid $26.62 on average, but were working on an additional increase later in the year. Many Wellington drivers got a boost to $27 an hour in 2021.

Better wages were hoped to attract new drivers and retain the ones they had who were threatening to walk. Wages also needed to be $27.76 or higher to meet the Immigration NZ threshold to hire overseas workers.

Chappell said the average Canterbury wage was around $24 once the providers – Go Bus and Ritchies – topped up Ecan’s living wage.

Half of Ecan’s elected members are newcomers, following the outcome of the October elections.

The other half would be aware the wage was the “primary contributor” to the region’s driver shortage.

This was according to a staff member at the September 7 Air Quality, Transport and Urban Development committee meeting, of which all councillors were members.

Members were told improvements to routes and other projects faced delays because of the knock-on effect of the driver shortage, which had also resulted in 3-4% of bus trips being missed.

Bus usage from the public sat at 71% pre-Covid-19 levels, 4% less than expected.

“For many, a reduced price [bus fare] is not enough of an incentive to engage with an unreliable service,” the staff member said.

At the meeting, councillors did not go on to discuss solutions to the shortage, but instead asked about increasing patronage and whether services could expand.

In 2021, bus drivers in the Wellington and Otago region went on strike.

Canterbury bus drivers did not, deciding to cancel their stop work meeting in October 2021 when an operator agreed to meet the living wage.