Staff Shortage Exaggerated
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IN a statement issued last Friday, Mr.
Peter Yorke, director of the British Omnibus Companies Public' Relations Committee, said that the shortage of staff in the road passenger transport industry had been exaggerated. So fat as companies affiliated to the committee were concerned, shortages were experienced in the heavily industrialized areas. such as Derby 2:d Birmingham, where there was an extremely keen demand for Manpower, but in other instances there was no-shortage.
The overall position was no worse than in industry generally. The real reason for staff shortages, where they existed, lay in full employment Ministry of Labour figures covering a long period up to last August showed that the turnover in the road passenger transport inaistry was habitually substantially less than for industry as a whole. Therefore it could hardly be suggested that road transport was unattractive to workers.
The average driver and conductor took great pride in their work and in their responsibilities. Although the industry was young, there were many hundreds of men who had served their present employers for over 25 years.
It was said that the industry was unattractive because of week-end work, irregular hours and long spread-over duties, although about 75 per cent. of all duties were straight. These factors were taken into account by the Brierly Arbitration Tribunal, which sat last November and awarded drivers a minimum basic wage of £5 15s. and conductors £5 I Is. for a 44-hour week. Those sums were greatly increased by extra payments for work on Saturday afternoons, Sundays, Bank Holidays and by special payments for spreadover duties, etc.