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TGWU ready for battle
Page 21
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• The Transport and General Workers Union will push for substantial wage increases in the bus industry to keep pace with inflation and high interest rates, says TGWU deputy general-secretary, Bill Morris.
Speaking at the Public Transport Campaign Group conference Perspectives for the 1990s, in Sheffield last week, Morris told delegates: "We will not be fobbed off with some mythical idea that mortgage interest rates should be excluded from inflation. That's about as realistic as removing Christ from Christianity.
"It was our members whose sacrifices of terms and conditions and jobs kept Britain's buses on the roads after deregulation. We only seek to make up some of that lost ground."
He is confident the TGWU could win a wages battle and hailed the Central Scottish strike as a watershed: "Our members held out successfully against the imposition of inferior terms and conditions."
"After the years in which workers have made conces sions to keep their jobs, and to help companies through the recession, the time has come when the balance of power must alter," he said.
Morris attacked the Government's policy of deregulation.
The unions' task must be to restore some accountability to the industry, he said: "We must reinforce the case for a national transport authority which will counter the Department of Transport's apparent bias against public transport."
A national authority would involve itself in vehicle design and safety, and prevent asset stripping. "It must be able to distinguish between genuine anti-competitive practices and the sensible and proper coordination of timetables and tickets — something the Office of Fair Trading seems singularly unable or unwilling to do," Morris added.