The Railwaymen's Claim •
If the miners have refrained from pressing their wage claim the workers in another shaky industry have not. The claim for a fifteen per cent. increase submitted on behalf of 600,000 railway workers by the three big unions concerned would cost, if met in full, something over £20 million. Nor, said Mr. Campbell, general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, were they asking fifteen and expecting two-and- a-half.. " We are as serious as we possibly can be." Yet the public would almost certainly not stand for the severe increase in fares which would be the immediate result of such an improvement in, the railwaymen's earnings. On the other hand, there is more than a little justice in the claim. The miners' conditions. have improved greatly in the past few years and the responsible majority knows very well that there can be no further improvement until they themselves create the conditions which will make it possible. But the railwaymen have known no comparable improvement since the war and their present discontent is natural. Nor can they by them- selves create the conditions in which their wages could go up without making the public pay through, the nose. It is the Transport Commission which, somehow or other, will have to arrive at them.
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