The Unfortunate In-betweens
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SHO some 330 dis trict managers RTLY, and gr and 1,500 depot• superintendents of British Road Services will be looking for new employment. Probably many of them will be men in the thirties or early forties who will have a reasonable opportunity of obtaining posts as industrial traffic managers. Others will be men who, in any event, would have retired in a year or two.
Some will be former owners of haulage businesses who will have something put by out of the compensation paid to them under the Transport Act, 1947. A few will be sure of continued employment in the remnants of British Road Services, but for most the uncertainty of their future must cast a gloom over the opening of 1954.
They are in a far more difficult position than the rank and file. The Transport Act, 1953, does not contemplate any substantial reduction in the total number of vehicles used for hire or reward. Even if a reduction did take place, the continued growth of C-licence fleets would provide work for competent drivers and fitters for many years to come.
Few Worries for Clerks The prospects for the general body of clerical employees, which B.R.S.had to recruit largely from outside the industry, are not quite so easy to assess. There are, however, reasonable chances that the clerks will find employnient in the manufacturing trades or in commercial houses, even if they cannot transfer to some other transport undertaking.
District and group managers and probably many of the depot superintendents are, however, in a less fortunate position. Before long-distance road haulage was nationalized, few of even the large organizations employed officials of a status similar to that held by B.R.S. district and group managers. Most businesses were small enough for the detail work to be done by the owner, with a general assistant to look after affairs if he were away.
A long-distance operator probably employed a man at the far end of the normal route who combined the duties of branch manager, loading foreman, booking clerk and canvasser, and he was usually paid less, even allowing for the change in money values, than B.R.S: depot superintendents.
The 1953 Act has been designed to restore free competition in road transport 'Tor the benefit of trade and industry and it does not take account of individuals, apart from safeguarding their rights to compensation and pensions. If its intentions are fully carried out and the industry returns to its former pattern, most of the district and group managers of B.R.S. are unlikely to secure positions comparable with those which they now hold. Many of the depot superintendents may also be faced with a reduction in income and status.
Soften the Blow There is, however, a way in which the blow might be softened and the services of these experienced men retained for the benefit of the industry and its customers. Section 5 of the 1953 Act authorizes the British Transport Commission to form companies for disposal by way of a transfer of shares. Used with discretion, this section should be of great benefit in allowing organizations to be sold as going concerns.
For the employee, it would mean an almost certain continuance of employment, for a purchaser would hardly wish to interfere drastically with an undertaking that was working well. Group or depot managers might well be appointed by the Commission to manage these companies while negotiations were proceeding and there would be a reasonable assurance that the managers would continue in reasonably comparable employment.
The British Transport Commission (Pensions of Employees) Regulations, 1953, make it possible, where purchasers are agreeable, for pension rights to be assigned with companies sold as entities. Although the Commission could not insist on the new managements taking on this liability, it is not unreasonable to suppose that most of them would do so The transferred managers would thus benefit by the safeguarding of their old age, and at the same time would not find themselves barred from employment because of their date of birth.