The Disgusted Railwaymen
The word "disgusted " seems to be very fashionable among members of the National Union of Railwaymen. It appears in a fair number of the resolutions from district meetings which have followed last week's rejection by a conciliation board of the claim for an all-round increase of ios. a week and payment at time and a quarter for- Saturday afternoons. Far from resisting this response to the inevitable, union officials are increasingly taking the line that they cannot be responsible for keeping the indignation of the men within bounds. What can they be responsible for ? If the very failure of the unions to deal with the nuisance of unofficial strikes is now to be turned into a bargaining weapon, what is the sense of having expensive organisations like the N.U.R.? Now that once again " working to rule " has started in South-east Lancashire— where it usually starts—are the union leaders going to wash their hands of it ? When the N.U.R. originally advanced its vast claim, which could only have been met at a cost of £26,000,000 a year, it ignored the Government's wage stabilisation policy and the obvious fact that the Railway Executive, which made a loss of L4,700p00 last year, could not conceivably afford it. It was still ignoring these facts when the present stage of submission to a conciliation board, whose findings all parties have agreed to accept, was undertaken. It even rejected the offer of certain wage concessions to the lowest-paid grades, who really need more money, in the attempt to prevent any alteration in their position relative to other railwaymen. But last week its representatives at the Trades Union Congress agreed to withdraw a resolution which had called for a repeal of Order 1,305, which provides for compulsory arbitration in trade disputes. They with- drew with the worst possible grace, behind the usual verbal barrage from Mr. Figgins. But the obligation to accept the decision of the conciliation board remains, and if it is not honoured in the spirit as well as in the letter it is the public, not the N.U.R., which will have most right to be disgusted.
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