Motorcab Topics.
Page 9
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THE LONDON MOTORCAR SITUATION: WILL THERE HAVE TO RE A LOCK-OUT?
Are the proprietors of motoreabs in London about to force the hands of the drivers? We detect indications that this may be the case, and in that event it must. be agreed that the time has been well chosen— from the owners' standpoint. Imagine the situation, were the equivalent of a lock-out to become effective one fine morning almost at once. The men turn up as usual ; they are told that no cabs will be sent out again in the old haphazard and non-regularized manner. For how many days can the men stand it? For how long will they miss their opportunity to gather in the considerable tips which are their perquisites? We give them less than a fortnight in which to capitulate, and we believe that the result of concerted and prompt action by the proprietors in the Metropolis might be followed by an even-earlier settlement upon an agreement basis. The terms of that agreement would necessarily be an expression of the considerable volume of accumulated experience, about taxi-cabbies and their ways, which now exists. Better for the owners, we say, to lay up their fleets for a week or two, or for a month or two, than for them to remain the impotent and passive victims of daylight robbery. We hope they will force the pace, and do it this side of the Coronation influx. Three pertinent questions may well be asked now. Why have the drivers, in their resolutions, ignored the vital matter of extras ? Do they propose to begin to register them, or to continue, as a custom and a practice, to appropriate them? Why does not the London Cab Drivers' Trade Union give an undertaking, on behalf of the men, that the drivers will in future deal fairly with the extras question ? Such an undertaking, it is obvious, would remove the necessity, which undoubtedly exists at the moment, for the proprietors to take whatever steps may be necessary, however drastic, to bring about the placing of notices in the cabs, in order to force it directly under the notice of hirers that extras are not legally chargeable in the absence of registration.