London Busmen Fight Week-end Cuts
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From our Industrial Correspondent
LONDOLONDON TRANSPORT is running new trouble with its busmen over the winter timetables, due to come into force on November 18 after being postponed from last month. The trouble centres on the proposal to make more substantial cuts in week-end services. While on weekdays only 29 services are to be cut from the schedules, on Saturdays the number cut will rise to 492 and on Sundays to 377. This, say the men, will seriously curtail week-end services and will mean a considerable drop in earnings, as Saturday work after 1 p.m. is paid time, and a quarter and Sunday work at time and a half. At a meeting of the Central Bus Conference last week, a proposal to have a one-day token strike on November 21— three days after the schedules come into force—followed by a ban on overtime was only defeated by 35 votes to 25 with 10 abstentions. The delegates decided instead that before such a decision was reached there should be an effort to secure an emergency meeting with London Transport and, if this failed, an approach to the Minister of Transport, Mr. Tom Fraser. After that the conference was to be convened again to consider the position. It was said at the Conference that at some garages week-end work would be cut by 35 per cent. It was also claimed that the cuts were in defiance of the Phelps Brown Committee of Inquiry's recomMendation that there should be no further cuts in services.