GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.

HC Deb 14 February 1913 vol 48 cc1494-9

Mr. RICHARD LAMBERT

The House yesterday was dealing with the question of railways and the question of legislation with regard to railways. To-day I desire to call attention not to a matter of legislation, but to a matter of administration. I desire to ask the Board of Trade, and I will give them I think a primâ facie case, to order an inquiry of some kind similar to the inquiry which has been held recently at Sheffield, into the question of the victimisation which I allege has been going on at Swindon on the Great Western Railway system. Some six or seven years ago the directors of the Great Western Railway, for reasons best known to themselves, decided to work the boilermakers' shop night and day shift. The consequence has been that there is now an overstock of some 200 or more boilers, and therefore it has become necessary to reduce their staff in the shop. I am not complaining of that, nor about the directors having to take into consideration the conditions of labour and other matters. But in the dismissals and reduction of their staff which they have been forced to make, they have adopted a policy. If they had carried out that policy I should not have had a word to say in blame. They have stated that in dismissing their employés they first of all have regard to the bad workmen and to the men who are bad time-keepers. When these are dismissed they then get rid of the younger men who have no responsibility, and they keep their tried servants and married men to the last. I have a letter from the manager of the company, with whom I have been in correspondence, which bears this out. He says:— In conformity with practice, the selection of men to be dismissed is carefully carried out On a common guiding principle which, in our view, is the right one, namely, the relative degree of efficiency of the men concerned. I have a case of a man, Mr. C. E. Smith, thirty-nine years of age, who had been for twenty-five years in the service of the Great Western. He was a good timekeeper, and did not lose a quarter-day in the whole of his years' service. He was an efficient workman, and was put to special work for the last eleven years, and never received a single complaint in his life from his foreman or charge-hand. In September of last year he completed his term as vice-president of the society in one of the Swindon branches. On 16th November he was elected second on the list of the Court of Referees under the National Insurance Act, and the result of the ballot was declared somewhere about the 19th or 20th. On the 29th, nine days afterwards, he was discharged, although many men junior to him were kept on. With him another married man, whom I will call "B"— because, although I know his name, I do not wish to say a word in public to his detriment—was discharged with him. He was twenty-seven years of age, and had fourteen years' service since his apprenticeship to the company. He was a man who was a bad time-keeper, and was in the habit of losing one or two quarter-days a week regularly and occasionally taking a day off. This man was reinstated before his notice expired, but Mr. Smith on application was refused. I have ascertained. that this man "B" was a strong Conservative. Now I have been in communication with the Great Western Railway about this case, and I have asked for au impartial inquiry.

I have all the facts as they were revealed before the company, and I have been down myself to Swindon and interviewed several of the men on the subject. The company will not grant an impartial inquiry with both sides represented, and I have therefore to appeal to the Board of Trade to come forward and do what the company will not do. That is not the only case. I have the case of a man named J. W. Stevenson, a National Reservist, who served in the South African war and came back ten years ago and took service with the Great Western. He is a married man with nine children, and there has never been a complaint against him as regards time-keeping or work. He was in charge of a saw. He was discharged on the 29th. He went to see the head of the works and asked for reinstatement, owing to long service and his position as a married man, and that several junior to him were not discharged at the same time, but he was refused. Another foreman of the works department, which is now working overtime out of compassion for this man's nine children, offered him work in that department, provided he passed the doctor. He did pass the doctor, but on going to present himself for work, he was told that it might, cause difficulty with other men and he was refused.

He was discharged and a Conservative was put upon his machine. If it was necessary to run that machine at all surely the man who had been accustomed to it and in charge of it for some years was the proper man to run it unless there was some ulterior motive. There is the case of F. J. Dyer, a driller in the service of the company for twelve years, married, with five children, good time-keeper, no complaints, and he was also discharged on 29th November although many junior to him were kept on and a Conservative was put on his machine. Francis James Lewis, a boilermaker's help with twenty and a half years' service, a married man, with five children, has not lost a quarter of a day during the whole of his service except once when he was away through sickness for ten days, no complaints against him; he was such a good workman that he was chosen for new work for the last two years. In his gang of something like thirty there were at least eight or nine who were junior to him who were kept on. He was discharged on 29th November. Another case is that of John Ernest Hogan, aged thirty-three, with seventeen years' service, married, with four children, good time-keeper, only eight weeks' sickness during seventeen years' employment, no complaints as to his timekeeping or work, especially chosen fifteen months ago for special work. In his gang of thirty-five there were at least seven junior to him, and one had only been in the employment of the company for eighteen months. It is true that since then this man has been discharged, but why was this new and junior man preferred to Hogan? I will give one more case, that of a man named Wolff, aged thirty-three, married, one child, who has seen many years' service; he was discharged on 3rd January, very good time-keeper and an efficient workman, and in his case several junior men were kept on. Every one of those men are Liberals, and in nearly every case the men kept on belonged to the other party.

I want to know whether the Board of Trade is going to allow this kind of thing to continue in the Great Western Railway work. We are giving great and increasing privileges to the railway companies, and the reason why we are doing this is because we are told that the conditions of employment of the men are going to be improved. There is something, however, besides mere pay when we have to consider the conditions of employment, and so long as a monstrous state of things like this goes on, no wonder this House is chary and 10th to give further facilities to the railway companies. I ask the Board of Trade to look into this matter and order an inquiry, and to see that the men are represented. It is difficult to get information, because many of these men have been scattered about—to Cardiff, Swansea, Portsmouth, and other places. I have been down myself to Swindon and interviewed these men and cross-examined them severely to know whether there was anything behind it all which would account for their discharge, and I have come to the conclusion, which I am certain any hon. Member of this House who went down, as I did, and interviewed these mtn, would have been bound to come to, that political spite and political influence is at the bottom of the whole thing. Therefore I ask the Board of Trade, at all events, to see that this matter is thoroughly looked into, and if these complaints are found to be justified, then the Board of Trade should give us such relief as will ensure that such a, state of things shall be stopped at once, and for ever.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson)

The hon. Member was good enough to send me notice last night that he would raise this question, and so enabled me to make inquiry in the Department as to whether any information had reached it concerning the cases he has described. No information whatever has reached the Department on the subject and even a search in the files of the Railway Press discloses only one case which does not seem to be one of those the hon. Member mentioned.

Mr. R. LAMBERT

I only knew on Saturday myself.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I am not complaining; I only say the Board of Trade has no information on the subject, and none seems to have been published in the Railway Press as regards this particular set of cases. The hon. Member asked that in view of the statement he had made the Board of Trade should order an inquiry to be made as had recently been done in the case of similar allegations against the Midland Railway Company. May I explain that in that case an inquiry was ordered by the Board of Trade only after a request had been put forward by both parties that the Board of Trade should express an opinion on the subject. The Board of Trade is not in a position on an ex parte statement to order such an inquiry as then took place. it made that inquiry as having been invited by both parties to make an investigation; no such request is, of course, before us in this case. What the Board can do upon the information, which I hope the hon. Member will supply us in documentary form, is to make inquiries of the company in the ordinary way, and we may possibly make suggestions or representations to the company afterwards. That is, however, the limit of our powers unless we are in this case as in the other case requested by both parties to pronounce an opinion. I trust my hon. Friend will at present be satisfied with that assurance.