Striking for cyclist safety

-- Unions to the rescue

Ordinarily, I don’t pay much attention to unions. Too many of these types, aw-right.

However, the squalid small mindedness of union organisers and their close cousins, rabid taxi drivers, can sometimes be revealing.

The protracted dispute between NZ Bus (including Metrolink, North Star, Go West, Waka Pacific, LINK and City Circuit services, used by 80,000 Aucklanders everyday) and the Combined Union (representing Auckland bus drivers) has moved a stage closer to custard, with a union issued directive for a work-to-rule day, this Thursday.

This, I gather, is designed to put more pressure on NZ Bus to “come to the table” by delaying normal services, as bus drivers take their time to “follow the company's handbook to the letter.”

I figure we’re safe assuming that under normal circumstances drivers don’t follow the company’s handbook. After all, if sticking to the rules is being used by unions as an instrument of coercion, not following the rules must be business as usual.

So it’s worth looking at the rules and mulling the implications of NZ Bus’s business as usual endorsement of their breaking.

In accordance with the work-to-rule notice drivers will not:

- Sign on to commence a shift of work earlier than required. (No problems. Who likes starting work early?)

- Adhere to the media communication policy as it is prescribed in the NZ Bus Operator reference handbook dated March 2008 and will speak to the media without specific authority of the board of directors. (Fine, knock yourselves out).

- Drive any bus, which is without a working radio telephone. (Business as usual: Some buses are without working RTs).

- Drive any bus, which is without a current certificate of fitness or a current road user certificate. (Business as usual: If it goes, drive it. Certificates are so overrated)

- Drive any bus, which has a safety defect the driver is aware of. (Business as usual: Safety smafety. If it goes, drive it.)

Drivers will:

- At the commencement of their shift, carry out full pre-shift bus checks as described on the defect card supplied with each bus. (Business as usual: Checks smecks. If it goes, drive it)

- Spend 5 minutes at the end of every time-tabled trip carrying out full terminal duties, including lost property checks, using toilet facilities if required by the driver or service person operator, performing stretching exercises and preparing the bus for the return journey (Bummer. ‘Lost’ property is one of the perks of the job. I’m sure absentminded commuters will be much more at ease this Thursday. Oh, and don’t forget to take a toilet stop and a stretch. There’s nothing more dangerous than a tense bus driver holding on till the end of the line.)

- If there are no toilet facilities available at any terminal at the time a driver or service person operator requires them, then he or she will comply with the policy as it is prescribed in the NZ Bus Operator Reference Handbook March 2008 at clause 9.12 (Wonder what this is? Activate the special emergency trapdoor?)

- Keep to all lawful speed limits (Business as usual: Speed limits are for eejits)

On reflection, I’m a big fan of the Combined Union. Because, as a bicycle riding work commuter, nothing scares me more than sharing the road with poorly checked and maintained buses driven at illegal speeds by overworked and tense bus drivers busting for the toilet.