Bus Strike Threat Grows
Page 47
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
From Our Industrial Correspondent
I-1 A SERIOUS stoppage of provincial buses and long-distance coach services any day now seems 'inevitable following a strike call by leaders of 100,000 provincial bus men. No date has been fixed yet and the strike still needs the official endorsement of the six unions involved. But this is likely to be no more
than a matter of form. • .
In fact, one of the unions, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, has already approved it, and the biggest, the Transport and General Workers' Union, promised all help a fortnight ago.
There seem now only two ways left open of avoiding a dispute. One is a change of mind by the employers. It is their refusal to negotiate or, to agree to any form of conciliation or arbitration that has caused, the' presentimpasse.
The other is intervention by the Minister of Labbur. Ministry officials have already unsuccessfully, tried conciliation. But with a strike threat they may decide to try again. One way which has not yet been suggested is a Court of I nquiry.
The last provincial bus strike, in 1957, lasted eight days. Then the dispute was sent to the Industrial Dispute Tribunal which awarded a rise of Its, after taking note of the differential. existing between the Provinces and London.
The award left a differential of 7s between Provincial. and London country bus drivers. Today this differential amounts to 25s. and . the difference between a Provincial and a Central London driver is Li 18s. 6d. This, the unions claim, is one of the biggest differentials in industry betwen Provincial workers and those in London, and quite out of proportion to the difference in their work,
EARNING MORE I N the four weeks to February 26 last, road passenger services of London Transport brought in traffic receipts of £4.357,000, compared with £4.201,000 in the same period of 1960. Similar receipts of provincial and Scottish buses belonging Io the B.T.C. were £4,311.000, compared with 14.059,000 in 1960.