Canberra's unhappy bus drivers threaten more strike action

[Buzz Killington]

A winter of discontent looms for Canberra' bus commuters with ACTION drivers vowing to continue the industrial campaign which saw services cancelled yesterday.

The strike action left 70,000 workers, schoolchildren and other travellers looking for alternative transport yesterday.

But there was no sign of the feared traffic chaos around town centres and Civic with most commuters taking the public transport disruption in their stride.

An Education Department spokesman said there was no major disruption to school attendances.

Principals reported parents were coping with the industrial action by car pooling to get children to school.

Source: The Canberra Times

[Barry Drive]

Source article: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/canberras-unhappy-bus-drivers-threaten-more-strike-action/1869389.aspx

... the fraught issue of management's demands for a 60/40 ratio of full-time and part-time drivers.

No. Management's demands are to alter the ratio from the current 60/40 to allow more part-time drivers. Get it right, Canberra Times!

[Sir Pompously]

The comments which they chose to put in the paper today were ridiculous. They chose all negative comments, CT is going the way of the DT. Best use, toilet paper.

[belcodriver]

DT?

Management want to remove any reference to % of fulltime drivers in the EBA. While I doubt they'd do it immediately that would allow them to go to a 100% part time workforce if they wanted. They also want to remove references to the number of Transport Officers.

One of my fellow drivers said that in a bus strike in 1988 the whole of Canberra was blacked by the TWU and the CT couldn't get any newsprint. Hence their hatred of us. I'm surprised that Graham Downie hasn't given us a serve.

[Snorzac]

DT=Daily Telegraph

[belcodriver]

DT=Daily Telegraph

Of course, The Torygraph.

[Sir Pompously]

Or Terrorgraph. Whatever floats your boat.

[Bus 400]

Bus Deadlock
The bus drivers union is still deadlocked with ACTION over a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
Bus drivers went on strike last month over the deal, saying management was trying to cut conditions and dramatically increase the number of part-time drivers.
The rest of the public service has accepted a two and a half per cent pay rise.
But Klaus Pinkas from the Transport Workers Union says bus drivers are determined not to budge.
"We're not going to trade those conditions off for two and a half per cent not in a million years would we do that," he said.
"Those conditions are pretty sacrosanct, so we keep them forever and a day, so we keep them until we get an offer that's worthwhile talking about."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/22/2961040.htm