No women drivers, say London busmen
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from our industrial correspondent • By 46 votes to 24 (with one abstention) garage delegates representing London Fransport's drivers and conductors on Tuesday voted against a proposal that women should be allowed to drive London buses. Earlier. the TGWU's • central bus committee had accepted a branch resolution urging equal driving opportunities for women.
Delegates at Tuesday's conference were warned that their decision meant there was now nothing to stop a woman clippie taking the union to court for depriving her of a job if it refused to allow her to be retrained. A judge could be asked to rule on whether a union had the right to stop someone doing a job on the grounds of sex alone.
But the ban means that women made redundant by the switch to one-man buses will not be allowed to train as drivers and under London Transport's re-shaping plan about 7,000 conductors, including up to 1.000 women, will lose their jobs as one-man buses take over.
The delegates rejected women drivers because, they claimed, women could not be trusted to handle buses in London's traffic.