Trimdon Decision is Deferred for Ruling by Minister
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A SUGGESTION that the Northern Traffic Commissioners were being 1--k used as tools by the Transport and General Workers' Union in the dispute with Trimdon Motor Services; Lid., Trimdon Grange, Co. Durham,
was refuted last week by Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, chairman of the Commissioners. He told Mr. T. H. Campbell Wardlaw, for the company, that the idea was "monstrous." The Commissioners were concerned only with whether the company were carrying out the terms of an award by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal, he declared. .
The company had been called upon to show why their road service licence should not be revoked or suspended because they were not carrying out the terms of the award (The Commercial Motor, last week). Decision was deferred until the Commissioners had ascertained from the Minister of Labour whether the Tribunal's order was binding.
Mr. Wardlaw contended that the award had not the same force in law as one by an Industrial Court. It could be enforced by the Union only if they took successful action in the Civil Court. In any case, the only condition in the award which had not been applied by the company was that conductresses should be paid on the national scale.
He pointed out that the major local companies paid their male and female conductors at differential rates, and this was a point which the Tribunal were to consider again. Only since a strike had started at the company's depot had the Union brought the matter to the Commissioners' attention.
" The Commissioners are being used as mere tools of the Union," he claimed. "You have, quite unfortunately, been led into this political arena by the Union."
To this, Mr. Hanlon replied: "That is a monstrous thing to suggest. What we are concerned with is whether or not the company are complying with the terms of the award." .
Mr. Herbert Blyth, for the Union, said there were other aspects of the award which had not been complied with. These points required local meetings to settle, but the company had refused to have any meetings.
Pure Coincidence
It is purely a coincidence that there is a strike on at the same time as these proceedings today." he said. " I resent any suggestion thatthe Union has got to have anyone else to pull its chestnuts out of the fire. The strike was caused by the people on the other side taking action to remove certain people who would have given evidence that the award of the Tribunal was not being carried out."
Mr. Blyth said Trimdon's employees did not have a guaranteed 44-hour week, mitwere there special rates for spreadover duties. They had no meal allowance for night-duty, and there was no local agreement in force about holidays with pay, publie holidays. or Sunday rates for the night-shift.
Deferring decision, Mr; Hanlon warned the company that if the Tribunal's decision were upheld and they continued to breach it, the Commissioners would regard this as "wilful " action.
A move to settle the strike was expected this week. The Union authorized strike action in protest against the dismissal of two members.