Sir Wilfred Takes • a Hand in Strike
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.-„THE first official moves towards solving r theLondon bus dispute were made on Wednesday, when representatives of both 'sides saw Sir Wilfred Neden, the Ministry, of Labour's Chief Industrial 'Commissioner. Mr. Frank Cousins, .gencral :secretary of the Transport and
• General Workers' Union, met Sir Wilfred at the Ministry in the morning, accompanied by his assistant, Mr. Harry Nietidlas, and the Union's national passengertransport officer, Mr. Arthur Townsend.
A few hours later, Sir John Elliot, chairman of the London Transport Exe,culive, put his case at the Ministry. These separate talks were of an exploratory nature.' Sir Wilfred wished to test the attitude of the parties, and then encourage them to resume talks over the pay claim.
The talks were prompted by Mr. lain Macleod, Minister of Labour, after a fortnight of resisting Opposition demands for Government intervention. In the House of Commons, Mr. Macleod repeatedly promised to step in when he thought there was a suitable opportunity, but stressed that bad timing on his part might do more harm than good.
Meanwhile, there is much speculation about the full meaning of his remarks in the House concerning disputes in the nationalized industries. A Labour M.P. had argued that the Government had a special responsibility to intervene where a nationalized industry was concerned.
To this, Mr. Macleod said: "After all these matters are settled, perhaps we should try to define more closely the position of the nationalized industries and the Government in relation to industrial disputes. It is a position of great fleXibility and it causes great difficulty and embarrassment to the Government and, I dare say, to the corporations as well."
When the full terms of a settlement are drawn up, employers throughout the country will be particularly interested in the Union's attitude towards non-strikers, whose jobs have been guaranteed by the L.T.E. One conductress, has been told that she is now regarded as a non-Union member, which will create a special problem, as the L.T.E_ agreed to a closed-shop principle in 1946.
In support of the strikers, crews employed by the Eastern National Omnibus Co., Ltd., agreed that services which overlapped L.T.E. areas should be curtailed at the boundaries from Tuesday.