The Government should reject a national bus company's request to fill 110 bus driver jobs with migrant workers, a bus driver union says.
Ritchies Transport Holdings made a request to Immigration New Zealand on March 3 seeking permission to hire overseas labour to fill 80 bus and coach driver roles for Auckland, 15 for Dunedin and 15 for Queenstown.
Because bus drivers are not on the Government's skill shortage list, Ritchies must obtain permission from Immigration New Zealand in the form of an Approval in Principal to fill the vacancies with overseas workers.
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Bus drivers did not want to work for Ritchies because it was known as a low paying company, [First Union transport and logistics secretary Jared Abbott] said.
It recently won a number of new contracts which were tendered at a price so low it required drivers to be paid a wage which was not attractive to local talent, he said.
The market solution for a company which can't find workers at the pay and conditions it is offering is to offer more. If they can't afford to, then well, maybe they shouldn't lowball their bids. Instead, these scum are sticking their hand out and demanding foreign labour so they don't have to pay a proper wage. That's not acceptable, and they should be rejected. If they're not profitable without a subsidy, then they're not profitable at all, and they deserve to go out of business.