Perpetual Motion
Page 28
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THE decision iaken last week by the Transport and General Workers' Union to sponsor an immediate claim by London busmen for an increase in wages of I 5s.a week is extremely serious. Its effects are likely, to extend far beyond the realms of road transport. So far as company and municipal bus undertakings are concerned, it means that they will be faced with an application for whatever amount is awarded to the London busmen.
A proposal that a claim should be made simultaneously upon London Transport, the provincial companies and the municipal undertakings has been rejected. This will give the companies and municipalities a little more time to consider the matter, but will deny them London Transport as an ally at the negotiating table, and weaken the employers' front.
Whether they will be bound by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal's decision of July 25 on the difference between London and provincial rates of pay is uncertain. It is arguable that that decision applied to the dispute of the moment and that the employers accepted the Tribunal's award of an increase of its, a week in settlement of it.
Indeed, the Tribunal were careful not to commit themselves specifically on the question of the difference in the levels of wages. Their judgment merely states that " they have taken note of the differentials at present existing between the rates of pay of the workers . . ." and "award that the rates of pay of the workers concerned. .. shall be increased by 1 ls. per week." There is no suggestion in the ruling that the differential then fixed is immutable.
The new claim is stated to be based on the rise in the cost of living, higher rents, the effects of credit restrictions and the 7 per cent. bank rate. It is difficult to understand how these developments, inconvenient as they may be in individual cases, can justify an increase in wages of £1 5s. a week for 53,000 busmen less than a year after the previous award.