Wellington Bus Drivers: The Fight is Still on

The Go Wellington Lockout
By Nick Kelly: Wellington Tramways Union President

As most of you know on Monday the Tramways Union (who cover the Wellington Bus drivers) and the Manufactoring and Construction Union (who represent the workshop workers) voted to reject the latest company offer. We began limited industrial action on Wednesday morning with a 1 hour strike. However before this first strike had happened the company issued and indefinate lockout notice starting 5am Thursday September 25th.

For the 1 hour strike we decided to hold a stopwork meeting at the Wellington Railway Station to discuss the lockout. Management tried to claim that the strike action we were taking was illegal. Drivers at Kilbirnie got on a couple of buses and drove to the station. The acting depot manager told me as Union President that I should tell the workers to get back to work, and that we weren't to take a bus to the rail. The workers ignored this threat and now I face some sort of retribution for disobeying "lawful instruction from my employer". The union now as a new claim that on settlement the company will drop all retribution against workers involved in the dispute. [More]