T.U.C. Organizing Campaign Against Denationalization
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npposmoN to the denationalization of road transport is beginning to take an organized pattern. A campaign is to be waged by the Trades Union Congress, the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party, and a nation-wide petition is to be launched.
The campaign will begin with a demonstration at Margate on August 31, the day before the opening of this year's congress of the T.U.C., and will continue until Parliament resumes in the autumn. Approval for the plans was given by the T.U.C. last week and 186 affiliated unions have been informed of details.
Five motions which have a bearing on transport policy are set down for discussion at the congress. None stands in the name of the Transport and General Workers' Union, although this cannot, of course, be taken to mean that the T.G.W.U. is disinterested.
A motion forwarded by the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association declares that the proposals made in the Government's White Paper, were against the findings of the Royal Commissions and investigating committees set up by previous Conservative Governments, that no consultation took place with the British Transport Commission or the trade unions before the White Paper was published, and that no provision had been made for the protection of staff.
It calls upon the congress to oppose the Transport Bill by every legitimate means and welcomes Labour's pledge to return road haulage to public ownership when restored to power.
The National Union of Vehicle Builders motion says that any claim for compensation upon renationalizalion of road transport should be fully resisted. A motion put down by the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen deplores the Bill's proposals and declares that denationalization would be inimical to the interests of the transport industry, the trading and travelling public, and the nation.
The National Union of Railwaymen contends in its motion that the Government's proposals were evidence of a complete capitulation to the private vested interests in transport.
Renationalization is supported in a motion standing in the name of the National Union of Mineworkers.
When, in the course of a speech at a T.G.W.U. meeting in Newcastle, Mr. A. Robens, formerly Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, announced that a nation-wide petition would be drawn up, he said that he did not think denationalization would ever be carried out.