The local mass transportation industry is defined as the intracity transportation of passengers by bus, street car, electric trolley coach, or rapid transit vehicle operating on regular schedule. It excludes that part of intracity transportation moved by taxi or automobile for hire. It also excludes intercity bus or electric railway operation. The industry includes over 700 operating companies significant enough to report to the Trade Association, which claims to represent 85 per cent to 95 per cent of the industry, of which about 650 have over 25 employees in the key classification of vehicle or bus operators.' The industry as a whole employs about 240,000 workers.2 Average hourly earnings in the industry as a whole were, in April 1948, $1.293.3 Many of the larger units in the industry are municipally owned, including the principal systems in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco. Of incidental interest is the fact that the charters or ordinances governing these municipally operated systems frequently make specific provision for normal collective bargaining processes, and if necessary arbitral or quasi-arbitral determination of disputes of terms of the collective bargaining agreements. The trend toward municipal ownership has not, however, extended to the Southeast in any large measure. All of the larger southeastern systems are still privately owned. Only a very few of the smaller, such as St. Petersburg, Florida, are publicly owned. Many of the public transportation systems were originally operated by private power companies. In the areas outside the South, most of the power companies have divested themselves long since of their transportation operations. In the South, however, this process is still in progress. Among the power company operated transportation systems in the South are those in Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham, High Point, Salisbury, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh, North Carolina;