Five per cent Increase for B.R.S. Men
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FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT
RITISH ROAD SERVICES is to give higher pay to its operating grades. At a meeting between representatives of the management and of union leaders it was agreed to grant an increase of about 5 per cent. Some 24,000 men will benefit from the new agreement.
The settlement follows almost exactly the lines of the Road Haulage Wages Council order R.H. (74) which gave the bulk of employees in the private haulage industry pay increases ranging from 9s. 3d. to 10s. 3d, a week.
The chief difference is in the date from which the new pay scales are to take effect. It was agreed that the B.R.S. increases should be back-dated to take effect from December 31. Those covered by the Wages Council will have to wait until January 16, the date set by the Minister of Labour. Mr. John Hare. It means that many men, whose pay week begins on a Monday, will be three weeks behind their B.R.S. colleagues.
Originally, when they argued their claim for higher pay last November, the -unions had asked for a " substantial " increase. In the course of the negotiations they made it clear that they had in mind an increase of 15s. a week for the lowest grade of adult worker with proportionate increases ranging up to about 17s. a week for the higher grades.
• As a. result of the agreement, B.RS. operating grades will be paid a shilling more than the rates laid down 17 R.H.(74). This differential, which existed before the latest settlement, will be unaffected by the increases. It meant, however, that the new pay rates were worked out not on a percentage basis, but on flat rates to keep in step with the Wages Council amounts.
Transport Appointment THE Minister of Transport has appointed Mr. W. E. Bebbington to be a member of the Central Transport Consultative Committee until July 31, 1965. He is transport officer of the National Farmers' Union.