L.T.E. to Hear Busmen's Claim Next Week
Page 30
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THEP" claim by 50,000 London bus workers will be presented to the London Transport" Executive again on Monday. Mr. Frank Coyle, national secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union road passenger transport group, is believed to have added several new points since the demand was last rejected (The Commercial Motor, Decernber 13).
Mr. Coyle said this week that Union officials had taken no decision on what would happen if the L.T.E. remained firm in their refusal. Any industrial action would have to be authorized by the Union's present executive, who would be replaced next March. Mr. Coyle drew up his arguments on Monday, before leaving for Scotland. He was due to return today, to confer with his colleagues in readiness for Monday's meeting. The busmen are seeking an increase of 25s. a week, The Executive last week promised to consider a claim presented to them on behalf of 6,000 workshop employees for increased pay, a 40-hour week and, three weeks' paid holiday.
The engineering unions decided at York to take no immediate action on the rejection by the employers of their claim for a 40-hour week. They are to wait until a similar demand made to the shipbuilders has been dealt with.
One of the reasons for the British 'Transport Commission's refusal of higher pay and shorter working hours for railwaymen was that to grant the claim would make it more difficult for the railways to compete with road transport.
BANTAMS IN CONSTANT DEMAND—HAULIER
SINCE three Karrier Bantam vehicles had been put into operation by a Sheffield haulage concern they had been in constant demand, Mr. J. H. E. Randolph, Yorkshire Deputy Licensing
Authority, was told last week. Mr. Alan Goss, for Frank Phillips (Haulage), Ltd., said two of them were on A licence and the other on )3 licence.
Phillips were applying to add another Bantam to their 12-vehicle A licence. Mr. Goss explained that they were popular because of their low loading height and because they were easy to manceuvre. British Road Services and B.R.S. (Pickfords), Ltd., were frequent hirers, or passed over suitable work, Mr. T. B. Atkinson, for British Railways, said it was not disputed that there was need for the vehicle, but the application should have been for a B licence, as all the work mentioned could be done in a B-licence radius. In any event, no separate figures had been produced for Aand B-licence operations by Bantams.
Granting the application, Mr. Randolph said the vehicle would be employed on work which was at present being done on B licence. However, customers might require services farther afield than the fiveor six-mile B-licence radius, and it was not proper that they should be denied these facilities A28