TGWU goes for the ton
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GOVERNMENT has laid it ly on the line that next winpay settlements will have to ibout half the level of those ast winter, if its strict manTient of the economy is to k.
ft with Transport and Gen Workers Union haulage ers having given notice that are looking for a £100 basic for manning top-weight lor(CM, August 8), the road sport industry is one in ;h the Government's aims going to be put to a stiff test, es ALAN MILLAR.
will be up to the regional 3tiators to submit their own ms with Joint Industrial ncils or groups of assenting hers, but the only variations e are likely to be on the nuts bolts — whether to press for il allowances or more hallpay — rather than on the stance of the basic pay claim.
-nployers should be astonI:1 if any Union negotiator for anything less than £100.
Fier last winter's troubled, strike-free negotiations, in ch most areas settled for inises of around £3 to £5 on c pay, there is a mood of t-up militancy on the Union this time.
ley feel they made a sacrifice year, and want to start catchup on lost ground. According TGWU commercial group .etary Jack Ashwell, many of drivers he has met in recent lths are thirsting for a fight, In if that means some liers could be put out of busi3.
e accepts that the recession, the severe depression on S. is bound to have an effect he coming wage round, but s concerned also about what terms the "stupidity" of the Ifederation of British Industry the Government in looking even lower settlements this ome of the industry's biggest tomers are "crucifying" lege, he says, but so far has little success in mobilising industry into enforcing more istic rates scales.
nd it is the level of rates oh Road Haulage Association resentatives hold up as the ;on why the latest wage claim can't be met. RHA Scottish secretary Tom Brattin says he fails to understand the logic behind the claim, and accuses the Union of ignoring the state of the industry.
Northern secretary Denis Le Conte, who confesses to have little sympathy for some members indulging in crazy ratecutting, nonetheless can't see where the money for a large wage rise would come from.
He told CM: "Last year we said 'no, we can't give you anything' and then paid £3 for the sake of peace. Operators have had no increases from their customers, the price of fuel has gone up, and tax has risen since then."
But his members are up against a highly ambitious Union negotiator in Geoff Eggleston, who has already tried a degree of industrial action against some hauliers earlier this summer, to try to gain an interim pay award.
He acknowledges now that that exercise didn't get very far, but is probably keeping his powder dry for the winter.
His members were among those who pressed for the £100 claim, on the pretext that. otherwise, operators who paid drivers according to the hours shown on a tachograph chart, would pay less than now, where hours limits are breached.
He also believes that £100 is needed to catch up with tanker drivers, who could well be on Mobil's £116 basic rate for 371/2 hours by the end of the year.
While he says his members accept that some operators are in deep trouble now — he cites one where the company was keeping staff going on only one contract — and are unable to concede an interim award, his attitude for the future is uncompromising.
If a company can't afford a larger increase this winter, then it ought not to be in business. "There is far too much haulage chasing too little business, some of it at 1975 rates," he says.
In the West Midlands, where both sides are still shell-shocked by their sudden fall from prosperity, TGWU organiser Jim Hunt says much the same, but in a less threatening way.
He believes the industry has slimmed down considerably already, and is in a better position to gain higher rates from its customers than it was a year ago.
Then, everyone was stunned, and operators were racing after one another in a futile bid to keep themselves afloat.
And, in common with Jack Ashwell, he points out that operators can't treat other sources of price increase in the same way as they do their drivers. "They don't tell the oil companies, local councils, gas or electricity boards to go away when they want to increase in prices, so why should they do it with drivers?" he said.
They certainly don't, and that is why wage negotiations are so
important to the industry. Th represent the one big ar where the industry can regul its own costs, and against t might of a Chancellor of the Eat chequer or the big oil COM panies, the pressure to cut wa costs becomes all the more in tense.
Add to that the new dimensi of redundant haulage driver setting up as owner-drivers an providing low-cost competiti for established operators, a the noose becomes tighter.
• It is Government policy at pre sent to encourage industrial re covery, or at least some sort 0 industrial survival, by support ing small businesses. Owner drivers, aided by a less-stringen Certificate of Professional Corn petence examination, are part of that policy.
So are Enterprise Zones, fro which low-cost competition co come, and no amount of prates from the industry is likely to cu much ice with the Government The entire RHA might as well fl a moth against Mount Everest.
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the RHA admit privately that the Government's "half-of-last+ year" aim is a non-starter for. haulage, but how high might it have to settle?
The RHA can draw some cornt fort from the fact that the Uniori claim is for £100. Whether it say so or not at the moment, it must be the figure from which it i going to negotiate.
If the Union believed it coui get £100, it would have starte from £110 or £120, and worke downwards — so a two-figu basic looks likely.
But remember that if th Union gets agreements for onl around £90 a week basic, an perhaps knocks an hour or tW off the 40-hour week, it will hay secured a significantly be deal for its members than it did year earlier.
That could be a key to th eventual outcome.
It won't be an easy winter the industry, and with both sidis out to try to keep the JICs cred ble in the eyes of their membei, It could be a bitter one. But it Wi have to survive it sorneho even if operators fold up result and drivers' jobs disk pear.