Bus Drivers and Public
The decision of the London busmen's delegates not to strike again this week but to send their dispute to arbitration—a decision still to be confirmed by the several garages—puts a rather better com- plexion on a completely indefensible movement. The busmen's demand for time and a half for Saturday afternoon work had no shred of justification, for the time-schedules as well as wage-rates were settled in every detail in agreements freely entered into in 1947 and 1948. In any case the procedure to be followed in the case of any dispute—reference to the recognised arbitration tribunal —was definitely approved by both sides. Both the London Trans- port Executive and the Minister of Labour are to be congratulated on the firm line they have taken throughout. The strike is, of course, completely unofficial, and no complaint an be made of the attitude of the Transport and General Workers Union, whose officials have done everything in their power to dissuade the drivers and conductors from what is a plain breach of contract and a particularly selfish blow at the convenience of a vast public. The London Transport Executive is fully justified in not merely withholding the strikers' normal Saturday afternoon pay—that is a matter of course—but making other cuts which under the 1947 agreement follow automatically from the failure of the men concerned to report duly for all of their six weekly turns of duty, though as matter of expediency it might be well, if arbitration is decided on, to drop the latter deduction.
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