London bus ban in the balance
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from our Industrial correspondent • Urgent meetings of the Transport Workers' London bus negotiating committee were held behind the scenes at the TGWU conference in Douglas, Isle of Man, on Wednesday, in a bid to avert a ban on overtime and rest day working by 32,000 London busmen due to start tomorrow (Saturday).
Also in the balance were a series of one-day Saturday strikes threatened from tomorrow by eight East London garages in protest at new schedules. The garages are at Seven Kings, Barking, Romford, Loughton, Honichurch, Upton Park, West Ham, and Poplar.
Busmen claim that new schedules already agreed by the union might reduce earnings by 2s a week.
The overtime ban is over a deadlocked
• A.new publication by the Highlands and Islands Development Board is Getting Around in the Highlands and islands, price 3s 6d. available from 6 Castle Wynd, Inverness. The combined volume has been developed from the seven area booklets produced for the first time last year, and contains comprehensive timetables of all road, rail, steamer and air passenger services for the period ending September 30 1969.
claim for 1 a week rises "without strings". London Transport has offered to increase basic rates by 17s from tomorrow in a productivity deal.
This improved offer has been rejected by the negotiators and there seemed little chance of averting the ban.
In a circular to the busmen London Transport warned: "Unofficial action of this kind isn't a 20th century way of settling problems,"
It warned that without more one-man buses there might be no buses at all on many routes because of staff shortages and rising costs. If a ban was imposed, the public would suffer through whole routes being withdrawn, and others being heavily cut and passengers would be driven away to other forms of transport.
• A request from two council members that an official public coach station be provided in close proximity to the city centre has been referred to the Merseyside PTA by Liverpool City Council. The councillors drew attention to the fact that travellers arrived in Liverpool by express coach services and alighted at various points in all weathers without any facility for shelter and so on.