Ah finally, the lockout has ended. The NZ Herald reports:
Buses will be back on Auckland roads tomorrow after seven days of disrupted service.
NZ Bus has agreed to suspend the lock out of staff and the union has agreed to suspend industrial action.
“This afternoon the unions have contacted us and as a result both parties have mutually suspended industrial action so that buses can be back on the road from tomorrow,” NZ Bus General Manager Zane Fulljames said.
The agreement means a week of disruption for commuters will end for now.
This morning bus drivers met to consider an Employment Relations Authority recommendation, the details of which have not been revealed.
But about 500 bus drivers passed a resolution to suspend their work-to-rule notice if Infratil-owned NZ Bus ended their lock-out.
Yesterday the company said if bus drivers ended their work-to-rule notice by 1.30pm today, it would end the lock-out.
However the meeting went until 1.40pm and union spokesman Karl Andersen was earlier waiting for the company to formally accept the drivers’ resolution.
It is also understood that the company made a revised offer to the 875 drivers and cleaners involved in the dispute. The offer was based on the secret recommendation from the ERA.
About 500 drivers and cleaners turned up to this morning’s meeting and the proposal was rejected by 95 per cent of voters.
The exact details of the revised offer are not known.
Mr Andersen acknowledged the recommendation as a good basis to resume bargaining with NZ Bus.
Mr Fulljames said “it was positive” that both parties had agreed to return to facilitation led by the Employment Relations Authority tomorrow.
I guess because the union rejected this latest pay offer there is still the possibility that there will be further ‘work to rule’ notices and potentially further lockouts (would NZ Bus be stupid enough to go through this again I wonder?), but at least for now there has been some sense on both sides that there is no need for all of us bus users to suffer while the minor details of a pay deal are sorted out.
Today was quite a mission for me, as I dropped my daughter Amalia at school in the morning and then drove to Kingsland to park, and then catch the train into the city. I was quite impressed that Veolia had the sense to be selling tickets on the train station platform, to reduce the number of people avoiding buying a ticket and also speeding up the process once you’re on the train. They’ve had a pretty damn busy week on the trains, by the sound of things. My 9.15am train at Kingsland was not packed, but was certainly standing room only by the time I got on it – which I assume is fairly unusual for something running at that time of the morning. Then in the evening I obviously had to catch the train out to Kingsland, although I didn’t do so until well after the evening peak (7pm train). Even then, I would say that train was pretty close to having all its seats taken by the time we had left Boston Road – once again pretty impressive in terms of numbers.
However, while it was a bit of a novelty to catch a train (it’s a been a while) I must say in general I am very much looking forward to my bus being back in action tomorrow morning. Let’s hope that’s the end of the lockouts for a good while yet. Oh, and I was on the radio this morning.
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