The right rates for driver pay
Page 41
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On a Monday, in January, I received a booklet from the Road Haulage Wages Council containing the latest rates of pay for road haulage workers. The front cover bears the legend "Effective as from 9th December 1974".
One would have to be a lawyer to decode this missive, but as the rates appear to be very much out of date, it does not really matter.
The transport manager of a large haulier happened to mention that he had just received notification from the union, telling him what rates he was to pay and another haulier told me that he was paying RHA rates.
Can you please advise me just what we are supposed to pay; Wages Council, union or RHA rates, or is it just a question of supply and demand?
On another point, we hear a lot about the professional lorry driver, but I am afriad that I cannot see in what way the hgv test makes a man a professional lorry driver. It does not test the applicant in night driving, driving a loaded vehicle, backing a loaded vehicle down a dark alleyway, or, most important, it does not take into account the vital business of roping and sheeting a load.
Regardless of holding an hgv licence, to my mind, the professional lorry driver is the man who has worked his way up to the big stuff by way of builders' trucks, delivery vans and the like, thereby gaining a vast experience, and making himself a true professional.
H. S. MARSH, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
[The Orders of the Road Haulage Wages Council lay down the minimum pay rates by vehicle weight category. These are legally enforceable minima, but the actual pay is a matter for negotiation, either individually or by various forms of employer/trade union arrangement. At present, negotiations between regional groups of RHA member hauliers and union representatives are the main source of the "going rate". — Ed.]