When Auckland bus drivers were at a standstill negotiating with their employer NZ Bus, a company owned by Infratil, they took a creative form of industrial action; doing everything their contracts required, like preforming safety checks on buses and taking the toilet breaks they are entitled too. The company responded to the action, known as a “work-to-rule” by locking out the drivers. Today was the sixth day the drivers were locked out. 80,000 passengers have been affected by buses being taken off the road in New Zealand’s largest city. Public support for the drivers has been high however, possibly because of actions by the drivers such as offering to take children to school for free- an offer the company rejected calling it “mischievous”.

New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Rudman wrote yesterday “Hard as it might be for the bankers to fathom, the 80,000 passengers inconvenienced by the lockout are sympathetic to the drivers, not to those trying to label them troublemakers.” With the public on the side of the drivers, it is unlikely that Infratil could have maintained the lockout, however it seems it was the Auckland Regional Transport Authority who were finally responsible for ending it. ARTA threatened to start cancelling contracts worth over 58.5 million a year to NZ Bus, under the direction of Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, who today told the New Zealand Herald that the effect of the lockout has spread to harassed parents who had to take time off work to drive children to and from school on the first day of term yesterday.