Company Busmen Reopen Claims
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DROVINCIAL company bus workers
will reopen wage negotiations next month. Mr. Arthur Townsend, of the Transport and General Workers' Union, told The Commercial Motor on Wednesday that the negotiating committees will meet on April 11. The employees' claim for an extra M. a week was rejected last month.
Large-scale fare increases will be inevitable as a result of the wage offers made to municipal busmen. These advances were expected to be ratified by the National Joint Industrial Council for the road passenger industry in London yesterday.
Transport committees all over the United Kingdom have given the matter much thought, and already some undertakings have made specific statements on proposed new fares to meet the cost of higher wages.
On Monday, Sheffield City Council agreed that the estimated costs of additional benefits to staff would be about £250,000 a year, and that this sum would have to be found out of revenue.
They have suggested that all fares up to and including 7d. should be increased by with the exception of the reintroduction of the 2d. fare for the half-mile journey. This is at present 21d.
The cost to the Edinburgh undertaking is also estimated at £250,000, and will be the largest increase that it has ever had to face.
An official of Belfast Transport Department said last week that the increase in cost to the department would be about £18,000 a year. Improved conditions as a result of the offer would affect only a small proportion of the department's staff, he added.
On the advice of the negotiating committee of the Union, delegates representing 38,000 London busmen decided, on Monday, to accept the offer by London Transport of a pay increase of 10s. a week.
They coupled with it a request for an immediate meeting of the passenger trade group council to establish the terms of reference of a committee of inquiry into London Transport's road services.