THREE bus driver strikes in two days are expected to cause massive disruption for students, families and workers next week, as a pay dispute drags on.
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Metro Tasmania bus drivers, demanding a 3 per cent a year pay rise, will walk off the job during morning peak hour on Wednesday and Thursday and on Wednesday between 2 and 3pm.
Each strike will last for only one hour, but Metro chief executive officer Heather Haselgrove said passengers should expect services to be disrupted for up to three hours each time to allow for drivers to get to and from the stopwork meetings.
``The stopwork meetings on Wednesday will be particularly disruptive as they will affect peak-hour bus services in the morning and school bus services in the afternoon, statewide,'' Ms Haselgrove said.
It is the fifth strike in five weeks.
Tasmanian State School Parents and Friends Association president Jenny Eddington said it would cause parents huge inconvenience and some children may stay at home, especially if they are travelling from rural areas.
``They live too far for the parents to be dropping them off at school,'' she said.
She said many children caught private bus services into Launceston, but were dropped off at a central point and relied on Metro buses to take them to their final destination.
Metro sent a revised offer to drivers yesterday including a 2.1 per cent pay rise with offsets for opening up urban satellite yards and extending a small number of drivers' duties to five hours and 30 minutes with two 15-minute breaks.
``Metro's financial position does not allow for the offer to be further increased,'' Ms Haselgrove said. ``The offer is reasonable given the rise in CPI for Hobart for last calendar year was 1 per cent.''
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union did not return The Examiner's calls.
Unions Tasmania has also joined the fight calling on passengers not to pay fares on Thursdays to show their support for drivers.
Metro said the campaign had little impact on fare revenue last Thursday, but Unions Tasmania boss Kevin Harkins said ``No Fares Thursday'' would continue indefinitely.
``I would have thought it would have been a smarter thing for the CEO to be talking about how they're going to move forward,'' Mr Harkins said.
