Industrial action suspended

Bus owners yesterday suspended industrial action in order to allow talks to start between the Malta Transport Authority and the Public Transport Association that represents them.

The PTA last month ordered that the service on most public transport routes stops at 8 p.m.

It also stopped the direct service between towns and St Luke's Hospital.

In a joint statement yesterday, the ADT and the PTA said that following a mediation meeting on Tuesday they would start meeting again to discuss all pending issues.

Sources said the first meeting is scheduled to be held on Tuesday.

ADT chairman Mark Portelli and PTA president Victor Spiteri declared the two sides committed themselves to abide by all the provisions of an agreement signed on October 4, 2004.

Bus owners agreed to suspend all actions with immediate effect and the two sides agreed to start talks on the provisions recommended in the Halcrow report.

Everything will be on the negotiating table, including the sensitive issue of subsidies for 2005 and the implementation of the Halcrow report as well as other pending issues. One of these issues is related to a clause that stipulated bus drivers should be given compensation if diesel increased in price between October and December 2004 but this was not yet paid.

The dispute between the government and the Public Transport Association came to a head earlier this month after attempts to negotiate a subsidy for 2005 failed. The bus owners at first asked for a subsidy of Lm1.7 million, eventually bringing the figure down to Lm1.3 million. The government said it would pay Lm1.1 million.

The implementation of the Halcrow report was another thorny issue.

The report contemplates a downsizing of the fleet to 200 buses. It states that buses are grossly underutilised, carrying about 60,000 passengers a year while their European counterparts carried double that amount.

It also contemplates the dismantling of the day-in-day-out system and the manner certain routes are set.

The PTA had said the report had one big flaw because it did not include the costing of the system being proposed and it was not known whether the proposed system would be more cost effective.

An online poll by The Times showed the government had a lot of public support in this dispute. Asked "Who is right in the public transport dispute?", 71.7 per cent said the government was right and only 9.03 per cent sided with bus owners while 19.27 per cent said none of them was right.

Comments from those who said the government was right ranged from sarcastic ones such as "I wonder how much longer will the PTA take us for a ride".

Others argued there should be an underground system to do away with the buses and ease traffic flows.

Others congratulated Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett for "taking the bull by the horns" and not allowing bus owners to have their way. One respondent said she promised herself never to vote for the government again if it gave in to bus drivers' demands as they never delivered what they promised.

Another suggested buses should run on gas, which is much cheaper than fuel, which was always increasing in price.

Among those who supported the bus drivers, some argued that the problem was complex as in some cases bus owners were not also bus drivers and there was not enough money for both. Others argued drivers were overworked and some worked 16 hours a day.

One said that increasing fuel prices meant lower profit margins for bus owners.

Among those who replied "neither", one said the poll should have included a section "don't care" as people wanted a better service at a decent price not tugs of war and stoppages in service.