PTA falls out with its Executive
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Request for fares increase refused
• The West Midland PTA has turned down a request from its Executive to endorse higher fares, and has complained of a lack of communication between itself and the Executive. This was the outcome of a meeting of the PTA last week (CM July 24) at which the PTE's request for 30 per cent increases on former Birmingham City Transport services, 20 per cent on West Bromwich routes, 17 per cent on Walsall and 15 per cent on Wolverhampton routes, were discussed.
The chairman of the PTA, Aid Frank Griffin, said that the 1968 Transport Act had failed to work, he requested urgent talks with the Minister of Transport, Mr John Peyton, to discuss the relationship between the Authority and its Executive.
"I find it quite intolerable that this Act should have put all the powers in the hands of the Executive and almost none at all in the hands of the Authority," said Mr Griffin. He quoted an example of what he thought to be shabby treatment by the Executive. He said he had asked if he could be present at a recent meeting with TGWU officials when a £2 a week wage claim by platform staff was to be discussed. He told the Executive that he thought it wrong to make an offer at that stage, but it disagreed. One member of the Executive had said that it would be better if he offered his support, he said, "So that we could 'go into battle' together. I then left the meeting—there was no suggestion that I should stay for any further discussion.
"I ask you," he exclaimed, "who is going to be a chairman of an Authority when he is treated in this fashion?"
The Authority did, however, endorse the Executive's offer of £2 a week in answer to the busmen's claim of £5 as "fair", having been told by Mr Frederick Lloyd, the PTE director-general, that a further offer could well lead to a levy on ratepayers.
This was a point which grieved Cfir J. G. Bean, an accountant. "We are left in the dark to make major decisions," he said "Now we have this sword of Damocles. called the rate precept, hanging over us ii we fail to make the right decision on the basis of the information we have not got."
Dissatisfaction is already being expressed by some drivers and conductors with the TGWU for failing to call an official strike in respect of the wage claim. Walsall busmen stopped work for two hours one day las week to attend a union meeting to discuss the claim and were told by Mr F. Lunt. branch secretary that no strike action was contemplated at the present.
At the Authority's meeting, Mr Griffin had said that the drivers' average earnings, with 15 hours overtime a week, were £35 each. Conductors, however, unaffected by the drivers' hours restrictions, were often earning more than £50 a week.