by Denise Roche
On Monday it wasn’t until I went to catch the bus to the office near K Road that I remembered that the bus drivers were on strike. It occurred to me then that it is very rarely these days that ordinary New Zealanders have felt the impact of industrial disputes.
In the last year there have only been three major disputes in New Zealand. They were the Ports of Auckland dispute with the Maritime Workers of New Zealand, the meat-workers lock out by the Talley’s-owned AFFCO meat processing plants and the strike by resthome workers at the Oceania chain of resthomes.
Aside from urgent health and safety reasons, in New Zealand it is illegal to strike (or lock out workers from the employers’ side of the bargaining table) unless a collective employment agreement has expired. Strike action is seen as a tactic of last resort for most unions and union members because workers lose wages during the industrial action and as was evident particularly during the Ports of Auckland dispute and the Talleys/AFFCO lock-out, it can do considerable damage to the employment relationship between the workers and the employer.
What is usually the case is that if workers are voting to take strike action it’s a clear indication that the employment relationship has been at an all-time low before the negotiations for their collective employment agreement started.
Certainly this seems to be the case for the members of the Tramways Union and First Union. They have been negotiating with NZ Bus Ltd since July and despite the union recommending a deal to the union members they decided not to accept it and have voted to continue with strike action.
Bus drivers work long hours and split shifts within a 14 hour timeframe and over a 7 day week. Despite being offered a deal that included pay rises over a period of time the members say they still feel undervalued and the resentment wasn’t helped at all by the company introducing unpopular shift changes during the bargaining period.
Union organiser, Karl Anderson, who has been representing the workers during the negotiations has been reported as saying that the drivers don’t earn enough to pay their bills and give their families a decent standard of living, and the delayed implementation of pay increases offered by the company prolonged this hardship.
Over years of negotiations the same issues arise and the question needs to be asked why the drivers feel that industrial action is their only way they can have some impact on their work practises. Even the company acknowledges that every collective employment agreement negotiations have resulted in strikes over the last 20 years.
Reading between the lines, I suspect that for the drivers the shift changes ignited the dispute and I’d expect that between employment negotiations the bus company does little to foster a workplace culture where the drivers have a say on their working conditions.
Unless there’s some definite change in approach I expect that not only will Auckland’s bus users be inconvenienced by intermittent strikes this year until the agreement is settled – but we’ll face the same disruptions the next time the negotiations come around.
NZ Bus is the biggest bus company operating in Auckland. They could be leaders in good employment relationships and working conditions. Sadly they’re not.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by Denise Roche on Thu, September 20th, 2012
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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I would be happy to sit down with you and explain all of the owrk we are doing to change the culture of our business to one where our people have a say in their day to day work. This is a quantum shift from where the industry sits which is more along the lines of “tell & do” . You may appreciate that this type of shift in organisational thinking takes two things trust and time.
Please feel free to contact me at any time and I and my team will gladly walk you through our business , what it is we are doing and why.
Warm Regards
Zane Fulljames
CEO NZ Bus
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Things are obviously improving. Keep it up.
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The Greens take the side of the union – shocker. What’s wrong with simply standing back and being neutral, rather than engage in political interference in a bilateral dispute between a private company and a union?
Do you intend to take a stand on every piece of industrial action that is undertaken in the country, on the side of the union?
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“What is usually the case is that if workers are voting to take strike action it’s a clear indication that the employment relationship has been at an all-time low before the negotiations for their collective employment agreement started.”
Sweet Jesus, get the real picture. The bottom line is the ONLY line. When employers pretend to care about their workers they do so only because it makes commercial sense. Every employer is ultimately controlled by a manfdate from their shareholders to make as much money for them as possible. All else is a PR show – a PR show handed over to workers if they are naive enough to buy it.
And the workers are just the same. They will strike if it makes sense, make up rationalisations as to why $30 per-hour is not enough (or whatever), if they can get away with it and screw more out of their employers.
It’s a sorry truth but that’s the game, though New Zealander’s are notorious for pretending to both themselves and others that it isn’t. There is no “relationship” behind the facade – only commercial truths.
BTW: I know someone who drivers a shuttle for $15 per-hour from 11pm to 7am in the morning. This person will have to pay for more costly buses as bus drivers force more money from their employers. We need new rules to protect everyone – not just those who can or do form successful unions.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/employment-law-for-fair-wages.html
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Libertyscott:
All political parties target a voter market – the Greens are no different. They target their appeal to criminals, beneficiaries, middle-class housewives, homosexuals, feminists, Maori’s, and low-paid working class people.
It’s a business, mate. The day they forget this is the day their party loses market share and ultimately fails.
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Striking was the line of first resort when I grew up in the seventies and eighties when unions were on strike all the time, the unions had far more power than they do now because of compulsory unionism. This is why I have never voluntarily been a member of a union except for one job I had in 1986. Remember when National brought in Employment Contracts, some factory down south some diehards decided they would picket (just like the portd dispute), their protest lasted for years but never got them anywhere.
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