• Pressure building for national strike
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IRASS ROOTS pressure is being put on Transport and General !corkers Union national officers to initiate industrial action against ire or reward hauliers if existing regional wage offers are not 'creased, reports ALAN MILLAR.
An unofficial meeting of shop :awards representing drivers iroughout Britain was held in irmingham last weekend, and 'commended that industrial acon, probably a national strike, e called from February 1 if ‹isting low percentage wage Ffers are not increased.
While the stewards' meeting
no official status within the 3WU, and national secretary ck Ashwell had received no fficial report when we )ntacted him on Tuesday orning, it is clear that it does .present a power base within e union, and it is similar to the .oup which initiated the 1979 iulage strike in different econoic conditions.
Its views have been conveyed TGWU regions, and the cornercial group is likely to discuss em, and the general impasse wage negotiations, when it >Ids a delegates' conference on inuary 27.
Only in the West of England, nere employers made a four ir cent "final" offer, is there ry confidence that a deal may done. According to Road iulage Association assistant strict manager Paul Carless, nployers are "quietly confimt" that their offer will be :cepted.
In the West Midlands, TGWU igotiators rejected employers' 2.3 per cent offer to increase top weight basic pay by E2 and subsistence by 25p, and union official Jim Hunt told CM that his side had registered its disgust with the low offer.
He added that the employers were warned that the apparently co-ordinated negotiating pattern adopted by employers across Britain could lead to a co-ordinated response and industrial action.
Scottish drivers have rejected employers' £2 offer there, by 1,847 votes to 178 in a 40 per cent poll, and have indicated that they are prepared to take industrial action before the end of this month. Both sides of the Scottish Joint Industrial Council are meeting on Tuesday next week, when the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service will be on hand in a purely advisory capacity.
TGWU official Willie Brand told CM that he expects the RHA to increase its offer but was pessimistic about the chances of enough being offered. "If they could come up with £3 or £4, I would be overjoyed." he said.
In South Wales, where no offer has been made to the drivers, a delegates' meeting scheduled for late January has been deferred until February.
North-West England unions have also rejected their employers' offers.
Three National Freight Consortium companies, Pickfords, Roadline, and Tankfreight, have made five per cent offers to drivers, with lower offers to other staff, and these have been circulated among the membership. The TGWU has still to decide on whether or not to accept British Road Services' offer of salaried status.