Mr. Cousins Defied By Own Busmen
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NOT everyone in the Transport and General Workers Union agrees with the general secretary, Mr. Frank Cousins, about his unilateralist defence policy —advocated by the Labour Party Conference in Scarborough last week. Five hundred Sheffield Transport workers last week protested that they were not with Mr. Cousins. Later busmen members of Leicester branch of the Transport and General Workers Union decided to collect signatures for .a petition.
Part of this petition reads: " Mr. Cousins does not seem to realize that working men are no longer an illiterate mass. They can think for themselves on matters of national importance and use their votes accordingly. Mr. Cousins says he speaks for the British people, but we suggest that if Mr. Cousins has as much time and energy to give to union business as he gives to power politics he would earn the confidence of the members of the union. If not, he ought to get into politics, which seems to be his ambition."
MI EXTENSION ANNOUNCED
THE Ministry of Transport has announced the route of the second part of the London-Yorkshire motorway, which will follow the draft line published last January except for a minor modification. The new 86-mile route will run from the present terminal of the MI at Crick, near Rugby, to a junction with the new Doncaster by-pass on the Al, which is under construction and due to be finished next year.
Draft schemes will be published later for a spur of the motorway running from Aston (West Riding) to Sheffield and Leeds, and for another spur from Catthorpe (Leicestershire) to Coleshill (Warwickshire).
Commenting on the announcement, Mr. John Hewson, chairman of the Hull sub-area of the Road Haulage Association, said: "The Lancashire motorway will he of some benefit, but what we are really pressing for is a motorway from Hull to Liverpool." The vice-president of Hull Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Claude Fisher, also stressed the importance of an east-west motorway.
HANDLING CONFERENCE
A ONE-DAY conference entitled "Top .1-1 Management Takes a New Look at Materials Handling" is to be held on November 30 in the Grand Hotel, Sheffield, by the South Yorkshire Section of the Institute of Materials Handling. Details can be obtained from Mr. A. M. Cohen, George Bassett and Co., Ltd., P.O. Box 80, Owlerton, Sheffield, 6.
NO FIVE-DAY WEEK
BLACKPOOL Transport Committee last Friday rejected the request by its platform staff for a five-day week instead of an 11-day fortnight, as provided in the current national agreement.