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Holiday pay exceeds average earnings
Page 24
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Labour relations • round-up by John Darker
• A new pay deal negotiated by the Transport and General Workers' Union and Car Train (MAT) Ltd at Oxford provides for £35 a week holiday pay. Basic rates under the deal were lifted by £2 a week, making basic hourly rates 60p per hour. A bonus scheme enables an extra £8 to £14 a week to be earned.
This agreement is interesting in that it is likely to result in holiday pay above average earnings. The firm employs 15 drivers transporting new cars from Oxford car factories to the railway junction. The usual practice is for generous pay deals to be negotiated with 'large employers, the effect seeping down to smaller firms. Mr Dave Buckle, TGWU district officer responsible for the negotiation, has said: "This is not just a very good agreement in its own right. It has set a high standard for the area, and will certainly figure in our meetings with the local car delivery employers, when we meet to discuss improved wages and conditions for some 500 workers."
The minimum rate for ready-mix drivers in the cement industry is now £20.20, a rise of nearly £4 on the previous basic rate. The agreement provides for New Year's Day as a standard holiday and uplifts the subsistence allowance by 50p. The usual one-year period between national negotiations has been shortened by one month—a sign of the inflationary times! • Distribution workers in the petroleum industry have won a £3 a week pay increase following negotiations with the companies—Shell, Esso, Mobil, etc.—by Mr Ken Jackson, national secretary of the Road Transport Commercial Group of TGWU. The £3 basic rise covers juniors and women. A driver (I) is now paid £31.25 basic. Senior airfield operators get £36.35 and vehicle craftsmen, £33.25.
Some 18-year-old youths whose basic earnings were £11 a week qualified for the £3 basic pay increase and are now eligible for pay rates in the £29 a week bracket —rise of £14 a week!
ACTS, the white-collar section of TGWU, reports in the June issue of the union's journal that managerial staff in the southern and northern establishments of T. Wall have recently joined ACTS. An agreement for negotiating rights is being drawn up. Supervisors and other management grades employed by Express Dairies (now owned by Metropolitan Hotels) have joined ACTS. London area personnel are chiefly concerned.
Pressure by drivers' trade unions for quieter vehicles would seem to be increasing. There was a long exchange of letters between the Scottish Commercial Motormen's Union and several vehicle manufacturers recorded in the annual report of SCMU recently. Now Mr Jack Nolan, a shop . steward of British Road Services Rothwell (Yorks) depot, has written an article for the TGWU Record complaining particularly of noise-induced hearing loss.
Writes Mr Nolan: "We often see the retired colonel depicted complete with ear trumpet, due no doubt to his long association with gunfire, but there are more deaf drivers than retired colonels due to Dr Rudolf Diesel's invention." , Mr Nolan refers to the frequency with which drivers transfer from one vehicle to another "a miscellaneous collection of bonnet covers, blankets and other materials in an attempt to dampen noise". He urges the union to bring pressure to bear on the vehicle manufacturers, the employers and in particular the large fleet operators in both public and private sectors of the industry "where their purchasing power as customers can bring this pressure to bear for improved standards".
The right of Mr John Stevenson, URTU central and southern organizer, to organize in Stockport and East Cheshire has been explained in vigorous terms to the Road Haulage Association in Manchester by Mr Arthur Hughes, assistant general secretary of URTU. A nine-week official strike at Harrison's of Dewsbury was ultimately settled by arbitration following pressures from TGWU and Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers who, it is alleged, "blacked" Onward Transport, a company in the same group as Harrison's (Acworth Transport Group).
Harrison's asked Mr Jackson Moore, general secretary of URTU, to intervene; according to Wheels, Mr Moore was not prepared to go over Mr Stevenson's head. At a nine-hour meeting in Manchester the company is understood to have finally agreed that the men had broken no agreement (the original cause of the strike). "They (Harrison's) had been advised by the Road Haulage Association in Manchester, not to negotiate with Bro. Stevenson; this is now on record", says Wheels.
The negotiators After the settlement Mr Stevenson commented on the RHA in Manchester: "If they don't want to talk to my stewards and me en bloc, that's their right and prerogative —but neither the RHA nor any other. ... is telling this union which officer or shop steward they will negotiate with: they aren't running this union—we are."
This story illustrates the complexity of labour relations matters. Having discussed the issues involved with Mr G. M. Oldroyd, assistant to the managing director of Harrison's, it is abundantly clear to me that the picture presented in the URTU journal is at variance with the employer's view at many points.
For example, in the Wheels story it is said that the "blacking" of Onward Transport led the group directors to intervene post haste. In fact, I understand that a meeting to discuss the Harrison dispute had already been arranged by local management.
The impression given me by Mr Oldroyd was that a number of Harrison's drivers and platform staff suddenly decided to work to rule, giving no reasons. Four men were sacked because they would not finish specific jobs and ultimately another seven drivers and warehouse staff were sacked —presumably because they sympathized with the men dismissed earlier.
What is alarming to me is that, on the employer's statement, no dialogue occurred between the aggrieved men and the local management before action—a work to rule —took place. It seems an extraordinary way for men to behave.
I understand that in this dispute the Department of Employment conciliation officers were drawn in. The DoE staff have great experience of labour disputes and for many years they have tried, with varying success, to establish sound personnel relations policies in industries like road transport. It would perhaps serve a useful purpose if a series of regional conferences were mounted at which RHA, ETA, DoE and trade unions could thrash out agreed lines of policy as the new industrial relations legislation begins to take effect. Quite evidently, the sort of bad feeling that has existed between an area official of URTU and the RHA organization in Manchester does not augur well for the future.