The threat of traffic chaos that hung over passengers for two days receded yesterday when four bus companies reached a last-minute deal in their pay dispute with 12,000 drivers.
After six hours of negotiation, the KMB group, which operates Kowloon Motor Bus and Long Win Bus, agreed to give its 8,000 drivers a pay rise of 1.4 per cent from June 1, plus a one-off bonus of $250.
NWS Holdings, which owns Citybus and New World First Bus, offered a pay rise of 1.8 per cent to those of its 4,000 drivers earning more than $9,000 a month, backdated to January, and an extra $165 a month to those on less than $9,000. But two unions representing half of its drivers have yet to decide whether to accept the offer and whether to cancel industrial action planned for Friday.
The Motor Transport Workers General Union, which mobilised 6,000 drivers at the four companies to work to rule between 10am and noon yesterday, said its industrial action, scheduled for today and tomorrow, had been cancelled.
The union had planned to stage another work-to-rule today during the 7am-10am and 4pm-8pm rush hours, which was expected to create long queues that would take hours to clear up. A strike was threatened if no consensus had been reached by tomorrow.
The companies' offers fell short of the drivers' expectations of 4.25 to 5 per cent, but the director of the union's KMB branch, Lam Shun-ping, said the drivers had considered passengers' interests.
'If we persist with our request it would create only more inconvenience to commuters and we don't want that. The percentage is all right. At least it covered part of our losses due to inflation,' he said.