ARC contract U-turn
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by Juliet Parish IIII ARC has started to climb down on demands that its 800 contracted owner-drivers sign controversial new franchise agreements or lose their jobs.
The aggregates giant has told three mixer drivers in West Cornwall that they can have their old contracts back after they took legal advice and threatened to leave at the end of August (CM 26 Aug-1 Sept). Two of the three have gone back to work.
The West Cornwall group was one of the first of ARC drivers to be asked to sign the new contracts which would scrap many of their financial safeguards, These include the ability to draw on a compulsory sum paid to ARC by the contractor to cover any short-term cashflow problems. The drivers were angry as they had been told they could have their orginal agreement until they had paid for their trucks.
But in July the drivers were issued with termination notices on their verbal contracts: Alan Bunclark, Derek Lea and John O'Brien still owed thousands of pounds for their units. West Cornwall driver Mervyn Harrod was told he could not extend his old agreement because he had paid for his truck.
Morale among drivers is low, says Bunclark, although he is relieved that he has work up to January 1995 to cover his finance agreement. Lea's contract has been extended to February 1998.
NODA's general secretary Mick Binns hopes that if drivers oppose the new contracts, ARC could back down in other areas.