Unions Suggest Two Solutions' to Bus Pay Inquiry
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FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT
TWO ways in which the wages of 100,000 company busmen might be determined were suggested by union leaders when they gave evidence before the Committee of Inquiry into the dispute over pay and conditions this week.
The first was for the court to determine a differential between the earnings of London busmen and provincial bus workers. The second, that the provincial workers' earnings should be related to those of semi-skilled workers in engineering and other metal-using industries and adjusted annually.
Mr. Sam Henderson, national passenger group secretary of the TGWU, was reluctant to name any figure which they were asking the committee to recommend. But when pressed by the chairman, Sir Roy Wilson, QC, president of the Indus trial Court, Mr. Henderson said: We are very conscious of the growing and very strong feeling of our busmen that the job they are doing should be equally compensated for on the basis of that for country services for London Transport. We desire the same rates of pay as the country services driver and conductor?'
This would mean increases of at least 30s. a week, Sir Roy pointed out that in this demand the unions were asking for very much more than was recently given to municipal bus crews, who were awarded only 15s. a week when they went to arbitration. Mr. Henderson replied that until these rates were satisfactorily settled on the basis of the country services rates, they were always going to be in difficulty and in trouble.
The inquiry was set up by the Minister of Labour, Mr. Ray Gunter, after a national' strike had been threatened by the six unions which make up the workers' side of the National Council for the Omnibus Industry. In addition to the pay claim the unions asked for a 40-hour week, an incentive bonus scheme and a sick-pay scheme—which the company employers held should be a national responsibility.
Speaking of the long hours a bus worker might have to be in uniform, Mr. Henderson said that a seven-hour day might be spread over a period of 11 hours 59 minutes and he received only 1 hour extra pay on top of his basic day. For Saturday working he would also receive a premium of a half hour's pay, so that for a week of 474 hours his pay would be 113 Is. 6d., but his total hours in uniform would be 68 hours 55 minutes. "There is not a factory worker who, for being on call for a working period of 69 hours a week, would accept a wage of £13. This is making workers fight shy of the bus industry."
The employers' view was put briefly this week, will be stated fully on Monday.