Stagecoach on PR offensive

In the absence of buses, commuters attempt to squeeze on to train services at Auckland's Britomart station yesterday. Picture / Richard Robinson

Auckland's main bus company is becoming increasingly desperate to sell details of its rejected pay offer to passengers who are siding with striking drivers.

"We have made a very serious offer and think it is going totally un-noticed, when you get the metal trades and other people settling for a lot less than us," Stagecoach operations director Warren Fowler said last night, after day one of an unprecedented six-day strike.

"We are going out there and leading the market with our pay increase, so why can't we get any traction with it?"

A measure of the company's frustration is its placement of a full-page ad in today's Herald, compared with a half-page version yesterday, in its battle for hearts and minds.

Most passengers spoken to by the newspaper, even those trudging up to 10km to work yesterday, have been grumbling at the company rather than the drivers for what they see as miserly wages.

But Mr Fowler is urging them to note a recommendation of Employment Relations Authority member Alastair Dumbleton that the drivers accept a wage offer of $15 an hour and a $600 cash sum in lieu of six months backpay, as the company can afford no more. "It is not just us saying this, it is the Employment Relations Authority."

Bus unions refer continually to after-tax profits of $38 million the British-owned company has made in the past three years from its Auckland operation, subsidised by the region's ratepayers.

Stagecoach executive chairman Ross Martin said the authority had accepted that, after paying interest on a loan for buying the regional bus fleet in the late 1990s and investing $80 million in new vehicles, the company had so far received a "negative" return from Auckland.

The company says an initial pay rise from $13.94 will give drivers 7.6 per cent more money, compared with 5 per cent achieved by metal workers for a 15-month agreement.

But combined bus unions advocate Gary Froggatt said those workers probably did not have to get up at 4.30am and face a split shift spanning up to 14 hours for eight hours pay. He said the company's offer of $15.33 next year and $16 in 2007, ultimately amounting to a 14.8 per cent rise, was inferior to the metals agreement given that it was effectively for a 3 1/2-year term.

Yesterday's ad by the company said it was offering wages higher than those paid by any of Auckland's suburban bus companies.

But National Distribution Union organiser Karl Andersen, who negotiates with those three companies, said wages of between $14.17 and $14.68 paid by two of them were due to be renegotiated late this year.

The fourth company, Ritchies Transport, pays a flat rate of just $13.20 an hour without overtime to "senior" drivers of more than six months' service but is in the midst of negotiations with Mr Andersen.

Ritchies has been able to undercut Stagecoach for about 30 per cent of subsidised North Shore bus routes previously dominated by the larger operator, which has about half the area's business. Birkenhead Transport has 20 per cent.

Stagecoach marketing spokesman Russell Turnbull admitted drivers probably had the edge over the company in the war of words, given that they were the human face of the bus operation in passengers' eyes.

"Its probably fair to say people don't get angry at people, they get angry at institutions, it's a natural response."

One weapon to emerge in the unions' arsenal yesterday was 89-year-old former Auckland tram and bus driver Wesley Macdonald, who bemoaned conditions lost over the years such as tea breaks, and said he would not work for under $20 an hour in today's traffic.

Bus pass refunds

* Stagecoach says it will consider compensating holders of its monthly concession tickets for lost travel, once the six-day strike is over next week.
* People who have bought concession tickets for $81 (for unlimited monthly travel through Auckland City) or $134 (for the entire Auckland region) say they are losing almost 20 per cent of their purchase from the strike.

Who to call

* Passengers can contact the public transport information service Rideline by phoning (09) 366-6400 or visiting its website (link below).