London Busmen Reject Mr. Cousins' Advice
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FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT
EADERS of London's busmen this week openly rejected the advice of. Mr. Frank Cousins, their general secretary, on the next step in their long drawnout dispute with London Transport. They refused his suggestion, backed by the finance and general purposes committee of the T.G.W.U., that they should go back to the L.T.B. to reopen negotiations on their claim for a "substantial " pay rise and a 40-hour week.
When the talks reached deadlock 10 days ago the negotiating committee decided that the time had come for Mr. Cousins himself to take a hand in the negotiation possibly by a direct approach to London Transport's chairman'.
On Monday when they met to consider Mr. Cousins' advice the committee decided unanimously to pass the buck back to Mr. Cousins by repeating their demand that he should personally intervene. It was felt that no useful purpose would be served in going back to the L.T.B. negotiators.
At the same time, their move is something of a snub to Mr. Cousins who has lost much of the popularity he once had with the busmen leaders in the years since the London bus strike.
Meanwhile, leaders of 70,000 municipal busmen submitted their claim to the employers at a joint meeting in London last week, The private company busmen have still to fix a date when they will present their claim.