Countdown to six-day bus strike chaos continues

Auckland bus passengers face unprecedented disruption from Thursday unless Stagecoach drivers heed an Employment Relations Authority recommendation that they accept a company pay offer.

Authority member Alastair Dumbleton, as a facilitator in the gruelling pay dispute, has urged the 1000 drivers to accept an initial wage rise to $15 an hour and a lump sum of $600 each in place of backpay.

But Stagecoach remained last night on notice of a six-day strike starting before dawn on Thursday, the longest continuous stoppage threatened against its Auckland bus fleet, after union negotiators issued a bulletin to drivers deriding the recommendation.

Mr Dumbleton said the company was commercially and financially justified in rejecting the drivers' demand for an immediate rise to $16 an hour - up from the $13.94 they receive now.

He said a report by accountant Ernst & Young showed that shareholders' returns were "sub-optimal".

He recommended drivers accept $15 now, to be followed by $15.33 next year and $16 in 2007, and noted that the initial increase of 7.6 per cent exceeded a 5 per cent minimum sought by the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing union.

"Proposed further direct action by operators will continue to reduce the amount of money available to the employer to fund a settlement - that much is simple economics," he said.

Union negotiators denied in their bulletin a claim by Mr Dumbleton that they had indicated the pay rates on offer were acceptable to them.

They also noted that the company had made after-tax profits of $38 million in the past three years from its Auckland operation, and expected to reap between $10 million and $12 million more this year.

Combined unions advocate Gary Froggatt said last night that Mr Dumbleton's statement was disproved by Stagecoach's withdrawal of a $600 lump-sum offer in protest against a refusal by the negotiators to recommend the overall package to a stopwork meeting.

He said the negotiators had sought $1200 in lieu of six months' backpay and told the company they would simply present the lesser offer to the drivers without recommending it, but they would equally refrain from rubbishing it.

Mr Froggatt also criticised the facilitator for allegedly failing to address claims for better working conditions, but he acknowledged that the negotiators accepted as a step in the right direction a company offer to reduce unpaid time in the middle of split shifts.

Although the union bulletin advised members that the negotiators did not have a complete offer to put to them before the strike, he indicated a readiness to call a stopwork meeting if the company would pay for one.

Stagecoach operations director Warren Fowler would not indicate last night whether the company would do this, saying it was up to Mr Froggatt to approach it directly.

He said the company had made a renewed offer to the unions based on Mr Dumbleton's recommendation, including a reinstatement of the proposed $600 lump sum, and described as strange a claim by Mr Froggatt that he had not received it.

"We faxed, emailed and posted it to him," Mr Fowler said.

Mr Froggatt is meanwhile understood to be facing growing internal pressure both from union militants and from more than 100 members of the Akarana Drivers Association, the most moderate of the four unions involved in the negotiations.

Akarana president John Kelliher confirmed last night he had assured Mr Froggatt a meeting of his members today to examine the company's offer was not a breakaway bid, but said there was little enthusiasm among them for a six-day strike.