WH Malcolm challenges the T&G's rigid to ask for more
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• The Scottish Transport & General Workers Union warns that if it loses an ACAS arbitration meeting with Scottish haulier WH Malcolm early next year drivers' pay could suffer.
Regional industrial organiser Danny Sharpe says the ACAS meeting will decide if his union was right to hold individual talks with haulage companies in a bid to win rises above the 3.5% offered by employers in Joint Industrial Council talks this summer.
"The arbitration decision is vital," says Sharpe. "It will determine whether unions and drivers will have to be tied to wage rates agreed to at a national level."
WH Malcolm is challenging the union's right to ask for a better deal at local level. In a union ballot its drivers have rejected the company's offer of 3.5% on basic rates (CM 29 Oct-4 Nov).
"Other haulage companies have approached us with terms bettering the 3.5% deal," says Sharpe. " We and drivers must not be restricted to accepting deals only made at a national level. The whole industry is waiting on the results of this arbitration."