Municipal pay: the heat is on
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from our Industrial Correspondent
PRESSURE is building up for Mr. Ray Gunter, Minister of Labour, to use his legal powers under Part II of the Prices and Incomes Act to veto £1-a-week rises for 77,000 municipal busmen.
Some employers are keen to see the award given the go-ahead. But the Prices and Incomes Board says the deal must be renegotiated to include measures leading to higher productivity.
Aid, Norman Harris of Southend Corporation, chairman of the Federation of Municipal Passenger Transport Employers, says: "The employers are in a difficult situation. It is a matter now between individual undertakings and the Government. The Government must come out with positive action either invoking legislation or acknowledging the situation that there is nothing they can do."
Nottingham and Newcastle Corporations have both asked the Ministry to approve payment of the rises.
Ald. William Dyer, chairman of Nottingham transport committee, says: "We are very short of crews, losing traffic, unable to maintain services, and facing both a terrific turnover of labour and costly overtime.
"We are up against an impossible situation. We feel that we have to honour our promises to the men."
Nottingham busmen staged a fortnightlong strike last autumn; they have voted for "positive action" if the present deal is delayed.
Nottingham wants to start paying the rises from February 4. Newcastle claims that a local productivity deal has been reached with its crews and says its deal is, therefore, different from that condemned nationally by the PIB.
Demands for strike action have been reaching Transport House all week. Busmen in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Salford have met to consider the five alternatives put to last week's meeting of busmen's delegates in London. These were: (1) An all-out national strike; (2) token national stoppages; (3) a nationwide work-torule and overtime ban; (4) strikes in selected localities; (5) accepting the Ministry's decision that the award must be re-negotiated.
Mr. Frank Cousins, TGWU general secretary, says: "I have posed in full detail all the consequences in any of the steps which might be taken".
The busmen's delegates were meeting again yesterday to decide their course of action. TGWU leaders were standing by to ratify any decision taken by the delegate conference.
It was known that the mood of the men in the North West, for example, was very militant. The 32 delegates at the Salford meeting on Tuesday, voicing the views of both municipal and company men, were 100 per cent in favour of some form of strike action, said Mr. H. Joyce, TGWU regional bus secretary.
Mr. Cousins warned last week: "The mood of the conference is positively irritated with the delaying tactics of the Government. I don't think the Government's action is conducive to good labour relations."
The employers are faced with a "shotgun agreement" which has been ratified by both the Federation and the National Joint Council. Their impulse to honour the agreement and pay up is hindered by Mr. Gunter's warning that the Government will invoke legislation against anyone who pays the rises or forces their payment.
They know it would be almost impossible to issue an effective directive to member authorities. The Federation is clearly looking to Mr. Gunter to take the next move.
Leeds buys services
TERMS have been agreed—with MoT blessing, but subject to Traffic Commissioners' approval—for Leeds City Council to acquire the operating rights of the stage carriage business of the Farsley Omnibus Co. Ltd. and the Kippax and District Motor Co. Ltd.
Both companies are Barr and Wallace Arnold subsidiaries, running local services.