Why ‘v8 Should Support the N.u.r

"The workers of the railway companies are entitled to the same treatment from their employers as workmen employed by other employers of labour." This is a quotation from a letter to the Prime Minister from the Railway Unions in 1911. It could well be repeated verbatim in 1966. Except for a very brief period in the early sixties railwaymen have always been on the bottom rung of the workers wages ladder. They have been permanently underpaid in spite of the 1955 Cameron Court of Inquiry which established the principle that workers in nationalised industrieswere entitled to a rate of pay equal to that paid in comparable industries and services, and the Guillebaud Report which worked out the practical details of this principle. Sir Brian Robertson, who was B.T.C. chairman, helped to initirte the report and welcomed the findings as a basis for future wages negotiations. But he was quickly disposed of and subsequently management have repeatedly rejected N.U.R. claims based on’Guillebaud. Latest 'Labour Research! figures, compiled from and compared with the same industries as Guillebaud used, show railway workers! wazes to be almost 9% below the average. The Prices and Incomes Board have now sided with the British Rails Board and rejected the comparability principle in defiance of the N.U.R. and previous railway management decisions. The strike decision by the N.U.R. is a natural and justified reaction. The Union also reject the outrageous contention that pay should be based on earninzs and not on basic rates. This proposal means that railwaymen should work round~the~clock . duties and week-ends and that any extra cash grained for these socially inconvenient periods should be counted against any claim for a decent basic rate of pay. The railway unions have co-operated in improving efficiency and increasing pr°ductivity and the facts and figures were submitted to the Prices and Incomes Board. During the last four years manpower has been reduced by 103,000 while passenger and ton-mile fizures have remained constanta productivity increase of more than 26%, Is it then fair that no wage claim can be considered unless a further productivity increase, which means a sacrifice one way or the other by rail workers I challenge the PIB chairman, Tory Aubrey Jones, to ride with a locomotive driver, one who has just lost his mate through an exten sion of the single manning agreement, throuzh the "deep nisht" hours and explain to him that no basic pay rise is justified because of’ extra cash earned by overtime and at the same time justify his own salary of nearly £300 a week, Acceptance of the conditions of the Prices and Incomes Board réport put the clock back ten years in the railwaymen's struggle for justice. The N.U.R. has the right to expect the support of all trade unionists if the Government does not reject this report , causing the railwaymn to strike on eteaster 14th.