How Can ing Busmen be Employed ?
Page 62
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THE need for ensuring that bus drivers and .conductors, who are. obliged for health reasons to leave their jobs between the ages of 60 and 65, can transfer to suitable alternative occupations, is suggested in a report published by the Nuffield Foundation, Nuffield Lodge, Regent's Park, London, N.W.1. The .report, "Bus _Workers in Their Later Lives," is the result of a study by Mr. F. Le Gros
Clark, M.A., into the industrial and medical records of 300 London busmen.
The records of the workers, comprising 150 drivers and 150 conductors. were studied from the age of 60 until they retired from the London Transport Executive. They were thought to have constituted a fair cross-section of the older men recently employed on buses, but to make sure of this their records were checked against those of a further 1,151 bus workers.
A section of the. report was prepared in co-operation with a former, industrial medical officer. of Manchester Transport Department. It was believed that as a result of this combined inquiry, a realistic picture of what was happening to elderly men employed in road passenger transport throughout the -country could be presented.
More than 90 per cent. of the 300 men whose records formed the main part of the inquiry had joined the service before the age of 40, and most of them were much younger than that. They had all been medically examined On recruitment.
Age
Little Advantage
Busmen were kept under closer medical observation than were workers in most other industries, the report states, but that probably gave them little advantage over other workers in later life.
Drivers of buses had a fair chance of preserving good eyesight. When 2,118 drivers aged 50 and over were subjected to routine medical examinations, only one was found with defective eyesight severe enough to take him off driving. In other respects, the health of ageing busmen was probably typical • of that of men in other industries.
Although the 300 men had all been apparently fit and effective at the age of 60, old age and chronic sickness soon began to take their toll. A number of men had to leave the buses before they attained pensionable age. A -few survived to retire at the age of 70. It was believed that more than 80 per cent, of the men were compelled to leave the buses by reason of age, ill' health or death.
The records indicated that, in their mid-60s, a number of the men who were otherwise in fairly good health had begun to comnlain of a sense of increasing strain or fatigue. The report points out that at an advanced age a man's own opinion of his staying power is entitled to some consideration; the stage at which he has to leave his n28 normal job cannot always be medically defined.
Even before the age of 60, some'men were compelled for health • reasons 10 leave their work on the buses, but after they had passed their mid60s, age and ill-health became dominant factors in determining at -what stage they had to leave. Few busmen managed to reniain at work until the age of 70.
At the age of 67, only 31 per cent. of the original drivers were still doing that work, and at the age of 69, 15 per cent. Some 7 per cent. were still driving at the age of 70.
Of the conductors, 26 per cent. Of the original number were still employed as such at the age of 67. and 16 per -cent, at the age of 69. Eleven per cent. survived at work until they were 70. IL was thought that a few of them might have been able to remain longer had
they been willing to do so. •
Against these figures, about 20 per cent. of both the driversand the conductors had been physically cOmpelled to leave their normal jobs before the age of 65. Almost three out .of foar were able, for a time, to.undertake alternative work, usually in garages or offices.
Conductors Suffer More The report estimated that the departures of about half the elderly men were the result of a medical recommendation or were -closely associated with bouts of bronchitis. rheumatism, gastritis and other complaints. The c.onductors appeared to have been more seriously incapacitated from such causes; drivers might often be able to carry on with a slight attack of bronchitis or rheumatism that would have seriously affected a conductor's work.
Bronchitis was one of the commonest causes of losses from the lauS service. In 1952, chronic bronchitis and allied conditions had accounted for 10 per cent, of retirements among drivers aged 50 or over. Among the 300 busmen studied, at least 20 per cent, of the departures appeared to have been associated with attacks of acute or chronic bronchitis. Arthritis, fibrositis, heart trouble and tits of. vertigo were additional
The report comments: " In so far as they five to quit their accustomed jobs at an earlier average age than many other industrial or agricultural Workers, it is due mainly to the unmistakable way in which the jobs show up physically those men who are no longer able to carry on, though it does not, of course, follow that they are unable then to enter alternative occupations."
The importance of this problem led to a special inquiry into the need for alternative jobs. "Bus workers are men of standing." the report goes on, "and the relatively high proportions among them that have to make a transfer of some kind are the test of our industrial capacity for prolonging the working lives of the ageing."
Bus operators made a systematic attempt to provide alternative work for those of their long-service employees who had to leave the buses before they reached pensionable age. London busmen were not retired at 65 years so long as they were medically fit to catty out their. full duties, but no alternative work could be offered to those who were physically coHnpelled to leaa/e after the age of 65. The same rule probably held for operators throughout the _ country.
„Basic Dilemma " More significant still," the report adds, "men who have been transferred from the buses to light work before the age of 65 are at that age compulsorily retired. The reason is simple enough. Light jobs 'exist, but not in unlimited numbers; and the annual flow of ageing or disabled applicants needing -such jobs isconsidered sufficiently high to necessitate the clearing of. the field at regular intervals. This is the basic dilemma we have to face with all our dealings with older employees, especially in such industries as road transport."
How many men need to transfer to light Work if they are to remain in employment, the report asks. Some would have become chronic invalids, but about 15-20 per cent. of elderly busmen were still fit enough for light work, although they had been forced to leave driving or conducting. The proportion increased sharply by the time men were passing through and beyond the mid-60s. •
" The problem is not restricted to the buses," comments the report. "It affects mines, iron and steel and most branches Of transport. Unless we can nationally widen the range of alternative jobs, an increasing number of men will have to retire beforeethey need-. The only course otherwise would be for the bus services to accommodate an increasing number_ of supernumeraries; and that would inevitably add to the
costs of operations."
As in many other industries, thee report warns, the proportion of older men on the buses will possibly rise perceptibly in the next 10 years.
[A limited number of copies of the report is available free 'from the Foundation.1