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Unkindest cut of all
Page 30
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WERE THERE sinister implications in the story in Fare, published by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive, about the occasion in 1932 when Coventry Corporation transport workers had to take a cut in pay? It was to offset a loss on the undertaking of — hold your breath — £7,000.
The reduction seems to have been a poor reward for an increase in average speed of operation from 7.4mph to 9.03mph, but some councillors argued that, even so, the staff were not badly paid. Drivers earned from £2 18s 6d to £3 is 6d a week, which, if I remember a right, was about the national average wage.
A wage cut would certainly be a gross injustice for someone like Nick Nicholson, one of the executive's drivers, who has retired after 50 years' driving without an accident or licence endorsement, and without having missed a duty in more than 40 years as a bus driver.