Busmen Beco' ing Militant?
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FROM OUR INDUST IAL CORRESPONDENT
TlitRE were more signs last week that ondon's busmen, now in the midst of a major pay claim, are getting more militant.
Election results, just announced, show that Mt. Tom Fitzpatrick, moderate chairman of the London Busmen's Negotiating Committee of the Transport and General Workers' Union, has been heavily defeated for a place on the committee.
This means that next Friday's meeting with the London Transport Executive on the claim will be the last at which he will have any influence.
Early in the New Year the chair is likely to be taken over by Mr. Bill Jones, a former Communist and a leading member of the-left-wing group on the union's executive committee, as well as one of the more militant busmen. • Mr. Fitzpatrick's defeat was not 'unexpected. There has been a long and virulent campaign against him for some 'time. He more or less sealed his fate when he opposed Mr. Frank Cousins.
general secretary of the union overnuclear disarmament at the union's conference at Brighton last July.
Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was chairman for four years. including the period of the London bus strike, hit backat his opponents soon after the result Was announced.
In a letter to Mr. George Woodcock, general secretary of the T.U.C. he alleged that "Communist-style vote rigging" was being used to damage the•chances of right-wing candidates in elections for the national executive of the union.
"Unless something is done swiftly at high level I maintain that these Cornmunist-style tactics will be successful and the Present elections will be improperly, influenced," he wrote.'
Provincial busmen, who have agreed on the terms of a new claim for 177,000 men and women in municipal and private company undertakings, have still not taken any steps to lodge it. They are awaiting the outcome of next week's meeting with London Transport.