Railway Gymnastics
The country came within an inch or two of a national railway 'strike last week. In order to avert this, a trade union was 'obliged to stand on its head. The Associated Society of Loco- Motive Engineers and Firemen, that is to say, had to reverse its policy at the last minute and agree to press for the abolition of lodging turns. This only a few hours after the society's president had viewed the strike with the " strongest disgust." INlow the trains are running again in the Western Region, and a strike has been called off in the North-East, but nobody should imagine that the danger of a major upheaval is one Whit the 'less. The footplate men may well imagine that their policy of blackmail has brought them victory against the union leadership, but they are wrong if they think that the union has any chance of blackmailing the Transport Commission into doing away with lodging turns. Nothing at all has been settled. The underlying cause of discontent among footplate men is that they do not enjoy the higher pay to which they think their skill and responsibility entitle them. If they are to have this (and if everybody's wage packet is to be fatter), then the railways must operate more efficiently. If they are to do that, then lodging turns must be worked. Now the executive committee of ASLEF has the unhappy job of denying this logic without offering any alternative. In this, and in other respects, ASLEF is essentially at loggerheads with the National Union of Rail- waymen. These are the two unions which are supposed to be discussing efficiency with the Transport Commission with a view to revising the wages structure of the industry. If they cannot agree between themselves, what is the Transport Com- mission to do but stand firm? If things continue as at present the time will soon come when the economic and efficient opera- tion of British Railways will be a plain impossibility. And yet they could pay; they could be efficient; they could give higher wages. All that is needed is for men like the drivers and fire- men of the Western Region and the North-East to come to their senses and recognise those facts which dictate conditions.
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