TGWU fights RIB bus pay probe plan
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THE GOVERNMENT wants the Prices and Incomes Board to investigate pay and productivity throughout the bus industry, with a special look into the delay in the wider introduction of one-man buses.
Three Cabinet Ministers, Mr. Michael Stewart (Economics), Mr. Ray Gunter (Labour), and Mrs. Barbara Castle (Transport), arc jointly concerned in referring the issue to the Board. But the TGWU national secretary for busmen, Mr. Alan Thomson, has told Mr. Gunter that the move would constitute "gross interference" with normal industrial bargaining.
The Government's proposal would cover 110,000 private bus company workers, 77,000 municipal authority workers and 35,000 London Transport staff. Behind the move lies anxiety over the fact that the TGWU, which bitterly opposes both the Government's incomes policy and the Incomes Board, has said that from midSeptember it will refuse to negotiate nationally for the busmen.
The Union believes it can get better productivity bargains by dealing with individual employers. It has already done so in some areas like Coventry, which has quit the national machinery.
The Union is demanding a 40 per cent share for the men of any savings from the introduction of the one-man buses. This is 25 per cent more than it gets in most places where the system now operates.