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Page 47
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No comfort to hauliers
When both sides in a dispute abuse the verdict of the arbitrator he is often justified in feeling that he has steered the correct middle course. Possibly the Prices and Incomes Board hold this opinion on their latest report on productivity agreements in the road haulage industry. There has been widespread criticism and not much praise even from neutral sources.
If as a result of the report the two sides in the industry once again set the national negotiating machinery in motion something may seem to have been achieved. The necessary staying power will still be lacking and the report does nothing to help on this point. The machinery broke down once before. "The main reason for this," says the report, summarizing what was already well known, "would seem to be a refusal on the part of the unions to negotiate with the RHA on the grounds that the Association could not bind its members to any agreements reached between the two sides."
This is not good enough. What "seems to be" is not a secure enough foundation on which to build new hopes. Having raised the point the Board had almost a duty to take it further and discover the real reason. It may be, for example, that the unions realized that they could make more progress more quickly by attacking individual operators or groups of operators and using the one-sided agreements thus obtained as a lever for wider approaches.
No more willing
Supposing this to be true it is unlikely that the unions would now be any more willing than before to return to the conference table. Or if they did they might well insist that their most favourable recent gains should constitute the starting point for the new negotiations.
Nothing in the report would deter them. Instead they might feel encouraged. The appraisal of the individual agreements which forms an appendix to the report is highly critical. But when it comes to the point the Board cannot bring themselves to reject the agreements completely. On this issue the summary and conclusions that take up less than a page are a masterpiece of evasion.
For reasons which are not completely clear they are made to hinge on the new Transport Act. If its provisions are not to result in increased costs, says the report, "a substantial improvement in the performance of the road haulage industry will be demanded." It can be achieved, the report continues as if announcing an important discovery, "only as a result of improved management and of effective agreements with the unions designed to ensure that a decrease in hours is not attended by a decrease in work done."
To what conclusion do these platitudes lead? "The agreements that have been referred to us are, at best, barely in accord with this objective," says the report.
No evidence is offered anywhere that the agreements have any direct connection with the Transport Act. Some of them were made as long ago as March last and all of them were based on the conditions ruling at the time. Certainly the Board were justified in looking towards the future but the terms of reference made it reasonably clear that this was to be a separate exercise from the examinations of agreements reached in the past.
The length of time which had elapsed might have been one embarrassment. Had the Board found the agreements completely unacceptable it would still have been difficult for the Government to interfere with scales of wages that have been paid for over six months. The most the Board could do might be to suggest strongly that agreements of this kind would hardly be satisfactory in the new situation created by the Act.
For the unions the temptation might be to pursue their claims even more quickly. As the Board have not positively condemned even the worst of the agreements submitted to them there can be no official rejection of further agreements on the same lines. Employers who may have looked to the report to strengthen their position will find themselves worse off. The sensible guidelines which the Board have laid down can be ignored with impunity.
Without tachographs
Immediate trade union reaction to the report confirms this pessimistic conclusion. Mr. Ken Jackson, a national secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, has been quoted as saying that the urgent need is for effective agreements at local level to raise pay, shorten hours and increase efficiency. The Government should announce a firm date, he said, for the compulsory reduction of driving hours, to force employers to improve the efficiency of the industry without the use of tachographs.
Mr. Jackson also said that the Board were "amazingly out of touch" in calling for national productivity guidelines for an industry where half the employers operated only one vehicle. Made no doubt in the heat of the moment this statement is worth closer consideration.
Most one-vehicle operators are ownerdrivers and can hardly therefore be described as employers. It is easy to understand the good union official's frustration at this epicene type which is neither one thing nor another and can neither be attacked as an employer nor persuaded to join a union. The difficulty probably spreads to include most operators in a small way of business. The owner and his drivers normally have a personal relationship which leaves little room for union intervention, let alone the appointment of a shop steward.
Relatively few operators have businesses of a size that makes it possible for the unions to establish even the most tenuous base. It is these operators who have borne the brunt of recent industrial militancy. The handful of really big operators have had less difficulty, perhaps because of their greater experience, in reaching satisfactory agree ments. The main sufferers have been the owners of fleets of between 25 and 50 vehicles.
Thorns in the flesh
It is for these firms that the Board have recommended a "strengthened employers' association". What this means is not entirely clear from the report. The only clue is a suggestion that the RHA should speed up steps it is taking "to improve its advisory services in the fields of industrial relations and of bargaining designed to improve performance." There should also be assistance at regional level, says the report, from the Department of Employment and Productivity.
In the RHA, as in the industry it serves, the main membership at least numerically comes from the small operator. The report has nothing to say to him. He has had no difficulty in providing satisfactory rewards and incentives for his men based still upon the statutory scales laid down in the Wages Orders. It does not worry him that he may be a thorn in the flesh of Mr. Jackson but he is concerned that his association should adequately represent his interests even where they differ from those of the medium to large operator.
The Board are not without an inkling of this. Their report gives the familiar table showing that 23,000 hauliers have only one vehicle each, 16,000 have two to five each, 7,000 have between six and 50 vehicles and only 210 have over 50 vehicles. The Board also appreciate that the industry is diverse but seem to under-estimate the problem which these facts and figures present to the establishment of national machinery which suits everybody.
Not for the first time when road haulage has been their subject the Board have acted like a referee competent in every respect except that he is working to the rules of an entirely different game. Their stern condemnation of blanket rated recommenda tions by the RHA would have been spien didly apt for an industry where price rises are automatic. It had no relevance to gene ral suggestions which were merely the starting point for individual negotiations.
In the present case it was not a set of commandments or guidelines that hauliers wanted. In spite of the doubts cast upon their capability for management they at least knew what steps ought to be taken to improve productivity. What they did not have was the strength to insist that these steps should be included in the agreements presented to them. If anything their bargaining power has been diminished rather than improved by the latest report.