Five-year campai
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The new URTU general secretary, David Higginbottom, talks about the union's poor financial situation and declining membership and spells out his plans.
• When the United Road Transport Union general secretary was interviewed on a local radio station recently, the first queston was: "Who on earth is the URTU?"
Newly appointed David Higginbottom readily admits his union, which has represented drivers for just over a century, is in crisis. Not only does the outside world fail to notice URTU's existence, overshadowed as it is by the mammoth Transport and General Workers' Union, but it also has a rapidly declining membership. In just over 10 years the membership has nearly halved, from 30,000 in 1987 to 18,000 today. By comparison, the T&G has 120,000 members who are drivers.
This decline has financial penalties. URTU would be making a serious loss today if it wasn't for the interest paid on savings built up by the union many years ago, says Higginbottom. "We will always be judged by our membership, and it is time to turn around this decline and establish a name for ourselves," he says.
Secret
Higginbottom overthrew former general secretary Frank Griffin last month. It was the first secret ballot of all URTU members for the election of a general secretary. Before this the post of general secretary was a job for life. This has now had to be changed to five-year terms to comply with new employment legislation.
The election result was close: Higginbottom won by only 31 votes, and only 24% of the members bothered to vote. In the election campaign Griffin, who had held the post for five years, played up his reputation for increasing benefits to members; for example he has improved sickness and death benefits and introduced a loss of licence compensation scheme.
But benefits are costly to introduce and they have not attracted new members during Griffin's time as general secretary, argues Higginbottom.
Higginbottom has a range of proposals: some of them obvious improvements which could be implemented easily, and others, Higginbottom's "innovative" proposals, are unusual.
Mundane
Among the more mundane policies that Higginbottom plans to implement is a recruitment campaign through posters and leaflets in truckstops and company offices. Higginbottom knows improving recruitment is a struggle and that things "may well get financially worse before they get better. In the old days drivers had to belong to a union in order to get work, but now there is no incentive. We have to invest to recruit."
One significant investment he plans to make as part of his recruitment campaign is the introduction of an URTU publicity truck, which would tour truckstops and would be manned by lay and full-time URTU officials giving advice to members and recruiting non-members.
Higginbottom sees this as an important way to meet drivers, and he plans to spend some of his time on the truck. He prides himself on knowing his members through 20 years in the transport industry. He started as an HGV class 1 driver, and drove for 11 years. His last driving job was nine years ago for Alf Vaughan Haulage in Worksop, Notts. After that he became a full-time URTU official.
Higginbottom lives in Whitby with his wife and two children. He was regional officer for the South Shields area before he was elected general secretary. From his experience in the ranks, he thinks it is important to encourage union officials to communicate more with each other through regular meetings, and to receive, more public speaking training.
One of Higginbottom's unusual policies is to set up a truckstop. He suggests that it may be possible for URTU to invest some of its savings, along with small investment from some members, to own a truckstop that puts to rest complaints about poor facilities for drivers. He says: "It worked with working men's clubs, why can't it work with truckstops?"
Adamant
It is unlikely, however, that this scheme will get off the ground for some time. But Higginbottorn is adamant: "We have run campaigns complaining about truckstops and they have not really been very successful. If no-one else will do things for us we should do it for ourselves."
Higginbottom's other entrepreneurial suggestion is that URTU should set up a driving agency. Some say that this would be a hypocritical move because unions are traditionally against agency drivers, saying they take away permanent posts and offer a poor service. But Higginbottom argues that it would help many unemployed URTU members get some work and, as drivers would be thoroughly vetted, it would improve the standard of agency drivers.
Unclear
But like his truckstop scheme, Higginbottom seems unclear on how his agency driver scheme would be implemented, or when. But he believes that without some imagination there is no future. "The union should broaden its objectives in order to survive the onslaught of antiunion government policies. Our principal aims of better working conditions and levels of pay remain, but we have to change or we will die."
One thing is certain; Higginbottom will have to achieve something or he could be kicked out in five years.
LI by Mary Williams.
URTU is based at 76 High Lane, Chorlton, Manchester M21 1FD. Tel: 061-881 6245.