National Conference of Employers Planned
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PLANS are being made to hold a national conference of road-transport employers on Saturday, September 12, at Sheffield, to discuss what steps should be taken in relation to the proceedings of the Government Committee of Inquiry appointed to investigate the regulation of wages on the goods side of the industry.
The conference, it is understood, will consider the possibility of securing a national co-ordination of policy and action by the employers 'in the various traffic areas, in the formulation of submissions and evidence to be placed before the committee. It is anticipated. that proposals for the reconstitution of the conciliation machinery will be discussed.
Primarily, the conference will be for members of the employers' panels of the Area Joint Conciliation Boards, invitations having been sent to all the ten panels in England and Wales. In addition, however, those Lancashire and Cheshire employers whose representatives have resigned from the North-Western Area Board will take part.
In explanation of the calling of the Sheffield conference it is urged that this is necessary because the committee's recommendations will be national and may be followed by amending legislation by Parliament. The present juncture, it is suggested, is the employers' list chance of securing a reasonable settlement of the vexed question of wages.
At Sheffield, it is expected that the Yorkshire employers' scheme of wages and conditions will figure prominently. This scheme, as mentioned in our columns from time to time, cuts out a number of provisions in the National Conciliation Board's scheme, which are considered to impose an undue burden on operators.
Indications of outside support for the Yorkshire scheme were forthcoming at a meeting, held in Leeds on August 29, of the standing joint committee of the employers in the Northern, NorthWestern and Yorkshire Traffic Areas, when the decision to convene the national conference at Sheffield was made. It was reported that at a meeting in Manchester last week, of employers in Lancashire and Cheshire (excluding Manchester and Liverpool), a unanimous decision was reached to apply the Yorkshire scheme in Lancashire.
The Northern Area representatives at the joint standing committee meeting in Leeds also indicated that they would advise the employers' panel in the Northern Area to adopt the Yorkshire scheme: