Transport the Key to Staggering
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Flow Far the Government's Plan Can be Effective Depends on the Availability of Bases PLANS are now being laid to implement the Government's tardy policy of staggering hours in industry. With calamity facing the Nation, no responsible person can quarrel with this decision, although there are many who feel that the Government is a year late in reaching it. The extent to which hours can be staggered depends, however, mainly on the availability of transport to take the workers to and from the factories.
Once again, the allegedly unstable and disreputable road transport industry, whose very efficiency and prosperity cause such great grief to the ruling Party, is called upon to save the country from defeat—but this time from self-defeat. Through the Regional Boards for Industry, road transport operators are being asked to assist in the great task of turning' night into day, and, despite the fate of virtual extinction which is to be their only reward, they will not be found wanting.
Perhaps shame has prevented the Government from making an open appeal to the road transport industry to do its utmost to promote the success of the staggering programme, although grace is ceasing to be a virtue of Ministers of State. The industry does not, however, need to be told where its duty lies, although it cannot perform impossible feats with vehicles long past their prime, More Buses Needed for Home Duty One of the most urgent needs is for the reversal of the decision to raise the proportion of public service vehicles for export. Another is to increase supplies of raw materials required for bodybuilding. Many of the buses at present in service are kept on the road only by the skill and patience of engineering staffs, and these vehicles cannot be expected to run even greater mileages over an extended working day. They must be replaced in the interests of public safety and industrial efficiency, but only the Government can give the orders that will enable the output of buses for the home market to be raised.
At present it is not possible to foresee exactly the effects of staggering on the road transport industry. Obviously, peaks of traffic will be flattened and the proportion of remunerative to unprofitable mileage may be expected to rise. Maintenance arrangements will undoubtedly have to be revised and the stress imposed on engineering departments in keeping obsolescent buses in service will be further increased.
The principal danger lies in the influence of staggering on the already strained relations between employers and workers in road passenger transport. If hours in industry be spread over too long a period of the day, the incidence of split shifts in transport may become even more vexed than at present. If the alternative of working straight ditties in the morning and evening were adopted, services at midday would have largely to be suspended. This would be a severe hardship to the harassed housewife, who represents the substance of the off-peak load and is already oppressed by more than a reasonable burden of cares.
Will Industrial Relations he Further Strained?
Unless handled intelligently, and with good will. the policy of staggering hours may cause new social unrest. Any reduction in the standard of working conditions in road passenger transport will be strenuously resisted, and the employers and the public may well be made the butt of political sallies.
Mr. Arthur Deakin, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, recently expressed strong disapproval of the principle of awarding favours to any particular section of the community. If road transport operatives be asked to make special sacrifices in aid of the staggering programme, the disparity between their conditions and those of the miners will be heightened. Thus there will be an extension of the tendency for the Nation to split itself into factions—a development that is doing great harm to industrial and social life.
Bus employees already regard themselves as the Cinderellas of industry and their attitude is not likely to be mollified by eloquent appeals. An early and firm understanding with the men who are to operate the vehicles is vitally important if the risk of disruption of the national effort is to be avoided.