Higher Night-duty and Subsistence Rates for Haulage Workers
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FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT
AN extra 3d. an hour (from 8d. to 11d.) on night-duty rates for work between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m, and an extra 2s. a night (from 18s. to 20s). on subsistence allowances for haulage drivers and their mates; those were the main proposals made by the Road Haulage Wages Council when it met in London on Tuesday. The Council also agreed that Trowse, Norwich, should be up-graded from Grade 11 to Grade 1 but the claim for a higher minimum overtime rate was rejected completely.
The Council's proposals will now be published as R.H. (75) and the Council will meet again after the usual period for objections has been observed. Its final proposals will then go to the Minister of Labour for statutory approval and publication as a substantive Wages Order. It is likely to be October before the new rates come into force.
The claims lodged earlier this year by
the four unions involved were for a minimum overtime rate raised from time and a quarter to time and a half, subsistence allowance increased from 18s. to 22s., and night-duty money at one-third the basic hourly rate, which would have meant, on average, an increase of about Is.
At the meeting on Tuesday the employers were led by Mr. N. T. O'Reilly of Robson's Border Transport, who had been elected chairman of the employers' panel on Monday; Mr. R. H. Farmer of Atlas Express, was elected vice-chairman.
The four unions will almost certainly wait until the whole process of the present claims is concluded before making their next move, which is likely to be a claim for a general pay increase. It will by then have been well over a year since their last claim was submitted (on August 29, 1962), a claim which resulted in a 5 per cent increase that took effect on January 16.