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Eleventh hour demo
Page 26
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THE TRANSPORT and General Workers Union has launched an eleventh hour campaign of action against the 1980 Transport Act, and says it wants the Government to perform a U-turn and stop the measure.
TGWU passenger group .secretary Bill Morris said this week that the Union is organising a public campaign to draw attention to the effects which the Act could have on bus services.
It is distributing 500,000 broadsheets and plans to collect one million signatures in time for the next session of Parliament. These will be handed in to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or Transport Minister Norman Fowler.
Each region will organise its own protest campaign, and London and Home Counties members were collecting signatures in London, Chelmsford, and Brighton on Tuesday this week.
The Union says it has already lobbied MPs in an effort to have the Act changed in detail, and it wants now to try to stop its effects once it becomes law. "We've been forced back on to the streets," said executive officer Larry Smith.
He added: "Unfortunately, Norman Fowler is talking about a new novel means of transport. He can only mean skateboards or tandem bicycles."
Commenting on the Government's belief that deregulation will attract new operators, Mr Smith said: "Unless you get a mini-driver in a miniskirt, driving a minibus, and earning mini wages, you won't get this."
He described the Act as "a paradise for pirates" and said there is nothing in it which appeals to TGWU. The age reduction for conductors, he said, could lead to schoolchildren being responsible for passengers' safety.
The plans for trial areas are particularly unpopular with the Union, and Mr Smith predicted that City of Oxford Motor Services would "go to the wall.' if a trial area is introduced in Oxfordshire.
Instead, TGWU wants the Government to impose restraints on private cars so that buses are given priority in traffic. "The bus is the family car of what Sir Keith Joseph calls the lower echelons," said Mr Smith.