Ilembers resisting !aim, says RHA
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IMS that member companies of the Road Haulage ciation had broken the two-week-old drivers' strike by ng outside the national negotiations with the Transport ileneral Workers Union have been denied by the RHA.
t despite this, main roads again been thronged by y vehicles belonging to iber companies of the and RHA chairman John rmann has appealed for in the Association.
Silbermann has accused 'GWU of using strike taconsisting of issuing false ments saying that corns have settled the dispute in fact they have not.
lese statements are cornly untrue," said Mr rmann. "A check at all offices confirms that all timing committees are ing to their offer of £60 0 hours and that they intend to maintain that Silbermann was replying to televised claims by TGWU executive officer Alex Kitson who claimed that the strike was crumbling.
RHA director general George Newman said last week that the employers' position had been subject to "widespread misrepresentation".
He added that the employers may be able to reconsider their position if the TGWU negotiators would drop their refusal to talk about the possibilities of a productivity element in the offer.
And he said that there was evidence of drivers who did not know what the RHA offer was. "Where the offer is known, there is widespread inclination to accept," said Mr Newman. He added that the TGWU move to make the strike official did not matter.
Mr Newman said that the employers could not raise their offer to the drivers until it was known whether or not Prices Secretary Roy Hattersley is to make an order freezing or restricting price increases within the industry.
He said that the order could also take the form of an instruction to named firms not to raise their prices at all, or beyond a certain level.
Meanwhile Mr Newman claimed that vehicles are being damaged and drivers intimidated.
The strike had been most effective in Scotland and the North-West, where salt has been held up and roads affected by snow and ice have not been treated because pickets have stopped supplies.
Talks with the National Freight Corporation that would have brought its drivers into the dispute over a separate pay claim have been postponed.
An NFC spokesman told CM that talks which were to be held on Thursday last week, at which the TGWU were to have demanded an instant settlement, had now been put off until this Thursday.
But he added that some NFC companies' depots were being picketed by striking drivers, despite union assurances that they would be left unrestricted.
As the strike went on, the Freight Transport Association is providing its members with an information service on the current situation.
All its regional offices were open over the weekend to help members with problems.