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Subsistence form : strike threat worsens
by CM reporters
A MILLION vehicles could be off the road if employers continue to try to compel their drivers to sign the new subsistence claim forms, warned URTU general secretary Mr Jackson Moore this week.
He told CM that the current rash of unofficial strikes would have been "totally unnecessary if the drivers did not have to sign the forms.
"If people are told that these forms have got to be signed you'll have a million vehicles off the road. Already employers in Hull have agreed that there'll be no signing of receipts— otherwise there'll be trouble," warned Mr Moore.
"These strikes were totally unnecessary. Tax problems belong with the employers. Tax has always been the employers' problem and we see no reason to change things now," he said.
Meanwhile, the Transport and General Workers' Union was arranging a meeting with the Inland Revenue to sort out the subsistence question.
But after the meeting a TGWU spokesman said that nothing concrete had emerged from the meeting. It was the first of a series of continuing discussions in an effort to end the anger and confusion that subsistence had brought.
Strikes continue
Meanwhile, the strikes go on. On Monday 1,000 drivers in Northampton struck for 24 hours over the terms. The men are all transport union members.
The Northampton action follows strikes all over the country, the most serious in Avonmouth where 4,000 drivers were out for four days in an action which reduced the area's trade to chaos.
Indications are that more strikes are on the way while employers continue to force the issue over the form signing.
This week the drivers' action brought a tight-lipped response from both the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association.
An FTA spokesman explained that the Association saw the dispute as one between the unions and their rank and file. "The rank and file are complaining about what their unions are doing with the employers as piggy in the middle," he said.
The FTA is also coming down on the side of the Inland Revenue on the question of a compromise solution to the problem.
"They shifted to give them £4.50 subsistence, but not with out the paperwork; the form as they wanted it was far more trouble than the one we finally managed to agree with them," said the FTA.
But the RHA would riot comment on the strike situation. "We have already made our position clear over the past few weeks," said a spokesman. "These are all unofficial strikes."
Subsistence demand
Meanwhile transport union officials are trying to arrange a meeting of shop stewards to be held in Birmingham later in June when they are expected to demand a change in the drivers' subsistence taxation position from the Chancellor. This week no reply had been received to a letter to the Chancellor, Mr Denis Healey, from transport workers' leader Mr Jack Jones.
Mr Jones told the Chancellor that the drivers might do better in the bargaining if they were represented by accountants. "Even civil servants enjoy a very •high tax-free allowance from the State," Mr Jones said in his letter.
Worried operators, nationwide have been scrambling to get advance warning of action by drivers in their, areas, but the FTA says that many operators are being warned of impending action by their men who themselves see no dispute with their employers.