Unions reject offer from bus operator

Unions will head back to negotiations with Auckland's largest bus operator next week after drivers voted down a pay offer with unpalatable strings attached.

Although the offer from NZ Bus has been rejected resoundingly by members of all four unions involved, lead negotiator Stu Harper said yesterday he hoped for a settlement without disruption to passengers.

Mr Harper, president of the Akarana Public Drivers Association, said the gap between the offer and what the unions were seeking for their 870 drivers and cleaners was so wide that they had seen little point in putting it to votes at stopwork meetings that grounded buses for four hours on two days of last week.

They did so only to fulfil good-faith bargaining requirements of the Employment Relations Act, he said.

The unions are understood to be seeking a 6.8 per cent pay rise, against a company offer of 3.5 per cent this year and 3 per cent for each of the following two years, which would guarantee industrial stability for buses needed for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Mr Harper acknowledged the company had reminded the unions that New Zealand was in the grip of economic recession, but said the current starting rate for drivers of $14.05c an hour was only $1.55c more than the minimum wage. "We see the effects of the recession in our members' seeking budget advice or looking for temporary loans to assist the housekeeping.

"Some of them are reducing spending on basic food items just to service their mortgages [and] get themselves to work, etcetera."

Drivers' wages rise to $15.30c after three months, and to a peak of $16.75c after nine months, but the unions also want a restoration of time-and-a-half overtime and penal pay - from time-and-a-quarter now.

Mr Harper said pay was just part of the picture, as the company sought a range of unacceptable "clawbacks".

These included being able to sack workers who were absent because of medical incapacity for more than a month, compared with three months in their previous collective agreement.

That meant those who took more than a month to recover from surgery for whatever reason, including from work-related accidents, risked losing their jobs.

Despite the negotiating gap, Mr Harper said the unions were pleased the company had agreed to return to the table, as they had no wish to inconvenience passengers.

NZ Bus spokeswoman Siobhan O'Donovan said the company did not want to comment during the negotiating process.