Are Conductors Unfairly Paid ?
Page 44
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YOUR leading article "Chancellor Gives Conductors 1 the Whip Hand" in the issue of "The Commercial Motor," dated May 19, is good as far as it goes, but no remedy is suggested. .
From my_own observations, and I have no connection with any public service, I would say that the thing to do is to increase the conductor's wage. By doing this he will work with greater keenness. In the good old days after the 1919 armistice, dtivers were in a minority and driving a vehicle quite an achievement. Thus a • driver was thought worth more than a mere collector of fares, if only because of his scarcity value and the great responsibility he was then thought to bear.
To-day things are far different. Drivers are easy to get, they sit in splendid isolation in the cabs, and they drive not-the-most-difficult of vehicles, backed up by a huge maintenance organization. For . this they are paid more than the . conductor.
I maintain that this is Wrong. The conductor is the more valuable servant, he .certainly works harder, because he has more to do. Apart from this he cannot even sit down. What with looking after passengers (what a job This can be), taking fares, giving tickets and .change, ringing the bell, to say nothing of climbing the stairs—all While standing in a moving vehicle—and inspectors to keep him up to he is the one to receive more pay. If the drivers do not agree, then let them change places for a bit.
Rexleyheath. HUMPHRIES.
PUBLIC CAN DEFEAT B.T.C. BUS SCHEMES IN the course of the inquiry into higher fares on buses and trains, which is now taking place in 'London, a financial expert of the British Transport Commission stated" that London was being• asked to shoulder the. burden first only because schemes for the rest of the country have not yet been produced.
The logic of this statement is unmistakable. London Transport's buses were taken over by the British Transport Commission in 1948. Therefore London Transport passengers must be made to pay higher fares to reduce the losses on the B.T.C.'s railways. The B.T.C. must then acquire the provincial buses, whether privately or municipally owned at present, in order that their passengers, too, may be made to contribute to the finances of the railways.
It is precisely because this was foreseen as the inevitable effect of nationalization that the proposed "scheme" " for co-ordinating bus and rail transport under the British Transport Commission, which was first mooted in the North-eastern counties 18 months ago, has been vigorously opposed by the Omnibus Passengers' Protection Association.
The scheme is equally repugnant to the municipalities, which take strong exception to losing local control over their transport systems.
London is only the beginning. Every bus service in every county is marked out for absorption into the nationalized transport system if the Government's project be allowed to go through. Bin—and this is the ,point—under the Transport Act, 1947, the public and the local authorities have a right to object to any
A34 scheme that is proposed, and if public opinion makes itself articulate, the schemes can be defeated. R. ERSKINE-HILL, Organizing Secretary.
(For the Omnibus Passengers' Protection Association.) Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2.
MILK HAULIERS DESERVE GENEROUS TREATMENT
I ALWAYS read "The Commercial Motor," especially
articles from the pen of your noble defender of the harassed milk haulier, S.T.R., and have followed with interest his recent contribution on the subject of rates for milk haulage.
As J. T. W. Parnell says in his letter in your issue dated May 26, the form mentioned by S.T.R. was one compiled by him.
It is interesting to see my old figures quoted again. They were compiled carefully and fairly, and my only comment to-day is that although negotiations With the Milk Marketing Board, the Joint Haulage Committee and others are conducted, after these_ many years, with quite a degree of civility on all sides, and that they endeavour to be as fair as possible, we can certainly do with a higher allowance for profit. This is the theme on which I have pounded the table for many years, ably stipported by my fellow table-pounder, R. P. Miers, who, of course, now leads the haulage side.
Milk transport is an arduous job calling for good organization, first-class time keeping, and, of course, it goes ohevery.day of the.year. The milk haulier should, therefore,, be generously rewarded for his efforts.
Bentley, Hants: C. W. E. W/NDSOR-RICHARDS; Vice-chairman, National Milk Committee
BUS WORKERS WHO SHUN NATIONALIZATION
A S one of the 1,000 members of the Cnon-political) Bus Workers' Anti-nationalization Society, I would like to comment upon a recent statement by the TrariSport and General Workers' Union, condemning this Society's activities in defending bus workers against the threatening confiscation of buses in the Provinces.
I would point &It that amongst members of the Union, there are some who arecapable of thinking for themselves and who are not content merely to wait to be told what to do by someone else, particularly when the matter concerns their very livelihood. Those transport workers who have already joined this Society did so because they could not see (and, more important still, the Union has not yet attempted to tell them) what benefit they can hope to gain from nationalization.
The Union is putting fOrward a very poor argument
indeed if the best it can find to say is „that we are " stooges.' I •think that it would pay members of the Union to ponder awhile before blindly following their Party leaders, and thus make certain that they themselves are not being used as " stooges " in a political game.
What authority does, the Union think it would have if all transport were to be State controlled, unless of course, some of its members have in mind good positions on the various area Boards?
Gateshead, 8. FRANK DAVISON.