TGWU demands 5 an hour minimum...
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By Lee Kimber • The Transport and General Workers Union is to campaign for a £5-an-hour minimum wage for LGV drivers in the belief that a driver shortage has strengthened its case.
The rate was thrashed out between drivers, TGWU national road secretary Danny Bryan and district officials at the union's national conference last Wednesday amid mounting evidence that agencies are pushing driver's rates up.
The campaign will recommend the rate with the message "the job's worth a fiver", although the union will continue to press for a £4 minimum wage in negotiations.
The carefully worded move comes in the week that the TGWU backed away from opposing the Labour Party's comprehensive rejection of a fixed-rate or earningsrelated minimum wage policy. But it found little support among some hauliers. "We would close down tomorrow," responds Grimsby-based Transpeed managing director Paul Brewster, "It's about £45 a week higher—that's too much money."
But TGWU officials believe many employers will adopt the new rate because the mild economic recovery in some parts of the country is causing a shortage of good drivers.
District officials around the country are understood to have told Bryan that agencies are offering to pay more than the unofficial £4.15 JIC rates as demand increases.
One union source says drivers in the south are leaving full-time work and signing up with agencies offering better rates. "They're voting with their feet," she says.
Bryan adds that many agencies are now paying more than £5 per hour, while employers are padding out low basic rates with inducement payments.
This weekend the TGWU's strategy committee will meet to discuss the details of the campaign.