Updated
Catch your bus to work early or leave late tomorrow (Wednesday). Between 7.30am and 8.30am, Go Wellington buses will be severely disrupted as many drivers stop work for an hour as they campaign to be paid something that at least remotely approaches a living wage.
It appears no buses will leave Karori terminus (routes 3, 17 and 18) during that time, nor will any depart the Railway Station terminal. Those on the road may not pick up passengers. School buses from these terminii are also affected.
This follows disruptions today that saw a much reduced service on the 1 Island Bay route — does anyone know if this was due to industrial action or some other cause?
Bus driving used to be a secure, well-paid job but pay and conditions were slashed in the early 1990s.
Go Wellington drivers start on just $12.72 a hour. The company is offering a 7 per cent rise to $13.61 but the drivers think they are worth more, seeking an 8.6 per cent rise which would take the basic rate to around $13.81.
While the company says its 7 per cent offer is higher in percentage terms than many other current wage rises, it is 7 per cent on a puny wage and very low for the skills required for such an important and difficult job as driving a 60-passenger bus through the chaotic traffic in our narrow streets while keeping to a timetable, taking fares and ensuring passengers have an “experience” good enough to attract them back tomorrow rather than driving to work or shopping or leisure in the private cars most Wellington bus patrons own.
The legal minimum wage in New Zealand is $12 an hour, a paltry sum we expect to be paid only to low-skilled workers such as McDonald’s burger-flippers, but many of them are paid more than our skilled bus drivers.
I defy any adult reading this blog to admit to being paid $12.72 an hour for a full-time job in Wellington and argue why you think you are well paid and planning a career on such a pittance. Only blogosphere wingnuts believe this is a great pay rate, not for them but for those they despise, who usually include beneficiaries.
Go Wellington is a progressive and deservedly highly profitable company (part of Stock Exchange-listed Wellington firm Infratil) that benefits by millions of dollars a year in ratepayer subsidies. The fact that the company has to get many of its drivers from low-wage countries such as Tonga, and that a goodly number of others are nominally retired over-65s supplementing their pension, is a damned good indication of how pathetic its wages are.
Some unemployment beneficiaries (and there are not many left now after a decade of growth that has seen New Zealand with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world) are paid more than our bus drivers, and they don’t have to get out of bed at 5am day after day. Bus drivers do.
- Update: Go Wellington has posted a notice on its website about Wednesday’s disruptions.
21 Comments
September 23, 2008 at 9:46 am
Labour strife has already begun. There was disruption on some routes this morning, including Island Bay, which had limited buses, and Owhiro Bay, which had none. Passengers who regularly catch the Happy Valley bus were picked up by a school bus and dropped at the Bay. There were some very frustrated commuters at stops this morning…
September 23, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Many beneficiaries are paid more than our bus drivers
Which ones? Do you have any actual idea what benefit rates are? (Here’s a few examples, since they’ll clearly help).
Wellington’s bus drivers have poor wages and worse conditions. Its appalling that it pays so close to the minimum wage (and indeed, about the same as you’d get in McDonalds). They deserve a raise. But rhetroic like that undercuts your case, and simply makes you come across as a grumpy old beneficiary-hating curmudgeon.
[Poneke: Even the basic rate for the unemployment benefit for a couple with no children is $361.08 by the very link you posted. With even just a child or two, plus accommodation allowances etc etc etc, such a couple are getting far more in the hand than a bus driver. Many bus drivers are not even rostered for a 40-hour week, they have to take however few hours the company allows them unless they starve around for years and get the seniority that lets them have full shifts and the overtime that might put more than pasta and canned tuna on their table. Their wages were slashed even further in the roster change of February last year which was the last straw for many, who quit on the spot. Since, the company has kept going happily hiring drivers from the Pacific, plus over-65s and part-timers with other jobs, knowing they will accept the pittance on offer. I happen to believe bus driving is a worthwhile job that should pay a living wage.]
September 23, 2008 at 1:11 pm
WTF!! again!
i was caught by this yesterday, when the only notice to inform us of the loss of service was a tiny A4 in a bus shelter…
certainty didn’t increase my sympathy.
[Poneke: There were signs in every bus for a week.]
September 23, 2008 at 2:08 pm
This wouldn’t have anything to do with Stagecoach owning the buses for a while would it? And their approach to trades unions?
[Poneke: No, it was called the Employment Contracts Act, and the massive pay reductions of workers such as bus drivers took place under it two years before Stagecoach arrived in 1993.]
September 23, 2008 at 2:53 pm
i’m not sure how thats supposed to make me feel better
September 23, 2008 at 3:10 pm
um… there were not signs in either bus i caught last thursday.
hence i sat at a bus stop yesterday, dejected and miserable, before cottoning on to strike thanks to phone call, and going home to do some gardening instead. a cheerful result.
my sympathy is with the bus drivers & thank you for reporting their case, poneke.
September 23, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Their situation is pretty dire, for work which requires much skill and responsibility. Full support to them.
As for I/S’ point.
$361pw works out at $18,000 per year, before tax, for two people. That person is not eligible for WFF, but is eligible for other forms of assistance, some of which are ok, like the accommodation supplement, and others which are negligible.
$12.72 per hour works out to approx $26,000. If that person has a child then they will be eligible for Working for Families. A quick squiz on the calculator brings up $7600. Those combined figures are hardly wealth, but a huge amount better off than the couple without jobs.
The whole point of the social security regime, under both National and Labour has been to make work a much more attractive proposition with a mixture of punishment and enticement. And they’ve succeeded. None of which makes the drivers any less deserving of a pay rise.
[Poneke says: I beg to differ, but $261 a week is $18,772 net of tax as all benefits are paid as if after tax. You simply don't find bus drivers with a non-working partner and children as they could not afford to live on their pay.]
September 23, 2008 at 4:54 pm
What gets me is that bus driving is serious, serious business. You are responsible for the safety of all your passengers, and the safe conduct of one of the biggest, most dangerous vehicles on the road. There is a non-zero chance of being beaten and robbed for your cashbox.
Other occupations with that sort of responsibility are paid far, far better. The pay rates for drivers are a disgrace.
September 23, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I whole heartedly support the wage increase for our bus drivers.
I remember London buses had a massive recruitment campaign a couple of years ago and the package offered was above the standard wage. The penison at Transport for London is well known as a great benefit. I just checked the TFL website and they are currently running a campaign for women bus drivers with a wage of around 500 pounds a week: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/jobs/currentcampaigns/womenbusdrivers/
The transport union in the UK is particularly strong and they appear to have negotiated on behalf of their members through difficult public/private partnerships etc. The union has the upper hand as transport strikes in London can bring the city to its knees.
I always thought the best way for the staff to manage transport industrial action would be to let the passengers on for free. This probably has all sorts of legal issues around the whole stop-work process though….
September 23, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I have it on good authority that the Dom either misprinted or was given the wrong information by the Union about the increase to the starting wage. The starting wage would go up to $13.61, not $13.16 p/h. They were also offered a flat rate agreement of $16.72. A7% increase that has been offered is also more than what any other profession seems to be getting for wage increases these days, far higher than the standard CPI.
Under their present contract which includes penals after 8 hours, weekends and on days off worked they earn a pretty good wage. When I used to work for Stagecoach 5 years ago I started on $11.02 per hour and making more than what I am now at $18 per hour as a flat rate.
[Poneke adds: You are right, 7 per cent is $12.61 and the mistake is mine, now fixed.]
September 23, 2008 at 11:23 pm
There is an easy answer to help the bus drivers.
A tip jar next to the steering wheel.
September 24, 2008 at 7:40 am
Kate has a great idea – I’d tip the driver
September 24, 2008 at 8:23 am
Grrr this makes me angry (and late for work)
It’s the same old NZ business story: CEO and top-heavy management pay themselves 200K apiece, but they couldn’t organise a p!ssup in a brewery.
To any manager reading this: the reason you get paid such huge amounts is to PREVENT this kind of thing happening. You are incompetent. Do your f%^king job and SORT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!
It’s like squabbling kids FFS.
September 24, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Jesus @che, there was PLENTY of warning. Have some heart man. The drivers have been royally screwed over and this action has been a long time coming.
AFAIK the guts of the problem is that:
1. they are no longer able to work 8hrs/day 40hrs/week, which has some effect on their rights wrt. labour regulations
2. they’re forced to work split shifts — i.e. go to work, do 3 hrs, come home, go back to work later, do another 3 hrs. Imagine being forced to work like that? Suck much?
3. the only consolation for the shit pay they have been receiving for years is that they were able to do overtime. This ability was removed.
September 24, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I am going to say this and get battered no doubt, but nobody forced these people to be bus drivers.
Just a thought.
By the way, the London bus/tube unions are despised by most Londoners so I wouldn’t want to be in the same category as them.
September 25, 2008 at 11:51 am
I think the Union has done a great job of talking about the hourly rate in headline terms but being silent on penal rates.
My understanding is that the *average* Go Wellington driver is on the equivalent of $43k per annum for an average 43 hour week.
That is a *lot* higher than beneficiary rates. It’s more like $19 / hour.
MAN 22280’s experience seems to be agreeing with this view.
I don’t have any comment on the positions of Go Wellington and the drivers in this particular dispute, but I do think that if this debate is going to be taken into the public domain, full disclosure of pay rates is the way to go. At least make the debate open.
September 25, 2008 at 11:58 am
My understanding is that the *average* Go Wellington driver is on the equivalent of $43k per annum for an average 43 hour week.
Er…
40 hours at $12.72 = $508.80.
3 hours at (even double time) $25.44 = $76.32
$508.80 + $76.32 = $585.12
$585.12 x 52 weeks = $30,426.24
In February last year, the rosters were changed to ensure all drivers worked less than 40 hours a week. This cut the pay of most drivers by many thousands of dollars. A third of the drivers resigned on the spot. You may remember the chaos this caused… weeks of cancelled buses while drivers were hired from places like Tonga to fill all the vacancies.
Even if the company-supplied figure you quote for an average is correct, it means many drivers must get much less than the average, and all drivers are getting thousands less than applied for their shifts up to February last year when the rosters were changed.
September 25, 2008 at 2:18 pm
So $12.72 isn’t just the starting rate for a new bus driver? You’re saying its also the rate for a bus driver who has been there for some time?
September 25, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The highest pay rate is $13.98. Most drivers are rostered 40 hours minimum on 5 out of 7 days. Most drivers collect in the hand after tax $650 – $800 per week
Shifts were cut back to 8 – 9 hours last year. Previously most shifts ranged from 8 – 11 hours. Now they are 8 hours they are getting longer call backs meaning even more over time. Broken shift drivers are getting work through their breaks cutting their 4 hour breaks down to 1 – 2 hours.
I’m now on $13.14 per hour and never earn less than $700 after tax. Make the roster suit you and if you want the work you’ll get it. If I’m going to work for a broken shift I’m not driving home so therefore I’m getting my break filled with work at at time and a half.
Talking to drivers before all this most told me in the last financial year they earned $50 – $60k. If you paid a higher rate so they could afford to live on 40 hours then that’s fine. Theystill chase the hours because everyones greedy and will take the over time.
The general public also need to get all their facts straight as the media and the union hasn’t been putting the correct facts out there. I voted in favour of the deal and think the rest of the driving staff are idiots, especially since they look up to Nick Kelly. Nick Kelly has never done anything for them. He doesn’t even try to get to know them. He comes in for his break at 11am and you never see him until 3pm when he goes out again. Never stops to talk to anyone. He’s only in it for his own personal gain. I for one will be resigning from the Tramways Union. Phil Griffiths would have never let it all pan out the way it ended up panning out at such an early stage.
September 26, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Who is this person? Not one of the company dickheads trying to stir shit?
September 26, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I would be interested to know why NZ Buses offer better starting pay rates (but still not great) in other areas of NZ where they operate. Why is Wellington so repressed?
Further, I know there are bus driving positions in Australia where drivers would be fully supported to validate NZ licenses and would be paid a starting wage of AUS$18.00 per hour for a full week. Some companies are offering as high as $23.00 per hour.
And the “powers that be” wonder why so many people are leaving for Australia? – as they say, “go figure”?