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STD demands EU fair pay
Page 6
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• Candidates for a top union job are under pressure to back demands for a minimum wage for all truck drivers working in the European Union.
The campaign is being organised by the Socialist Truck Drivers (STD) group which claims international hauliers are increasingly using low-waged, non-EU drivers to cut costs.
It Is circulating a petition among members of the Transport & General Workers Union during the election of a successor to general secretary Bill Morris.
STD secretary Rachael Webb argues that border officials could chock employment contracts in the same way as other paperwork.
"I don't see why we should not insist that anyone working in the EU should have to be paid EU rates," she says.
However Tony Woodley, one of the four candidates in the election, has written to Webb, pointing out that the demand is riot supported by the European Transport Workers Federation because it would be ''pretty impractical at the present moment".
Nigel Baxter, transport director of Nottingham-based RH Freight Services, agrees. "I can't imagine a country's border controls checking that your earnings are commensurate with the rest of Europe. It beggars belief."
His company has been singled out for criticism by STD for using Estonian drivers but Baxter says they are working for subcontractors. "We don't ask those companies employing them what they are paid. All driver's that are employed by RH Group are British by nationality or are British residents."
The STD petition is being circulated among the TGWU's 80,900-strong road transport sector. The petition also calls for the 4S-hour working week to apply to non-EU drivers working in the EU and for a Europe-wide trade union conference of truck drivers.
• E-mail: guy.sheppard(a)blueyonder.co.uk