MINISTERS HAVE LONDON INQUIRY REPORT
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FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT
THE Committee of Inquiry into the pay and conditions of employment of London Transport drivers and conductors has finished its work in the near record time of a little more than three months, The committee's final report was handed to Mr. Joseph Godber, the Minister of Labour, and the Minister of Transport, who jointly appointed the committee, last week-end and is expected to be printed and published before the end of the month.
Since the publication of the interim report, which resulted in pay increases for busmen, the committee has been concerned with the more long-term problems facing London Transport and its bus operations, especially the requirement to "pay due regard to the possibilities of increasing the efficiency of London Transport's road services and to the considerations affecting national economic growth ".
It is the latter part concerned with increasing efficiency that has taken up much of the committee's time.
Not unnaturally, in view of the complexity of the matters on which the r/24 committee members had to decide, the final report is a far longer and more involved document than their interim paper. One of the subjects they are believed to have dealt with is the question of a subsidy for public transport. But the major part of their recommendations is understood to be concerned with ways of improving services and the proper remuneration to be paid to bus crews for co-operation.
Both London Transport and leaders of the Transport and General Workers' Union can see ahead of them long weeks of talks in an attempt to work out an agreement on the lines of the Phelps Brown Committee report. Even if union leaders are in favour of improving efficiency, they know from hard experience the difficulties of carrying their rank and file members with them.
The report will also have repercussions on the provincial busmen who have just concluded their own pay negotiations with the final acceptance of pay rises ranging from 10s. 6d. to 14s. a week by a delegate conference of company busmen.