LOWRY'S PICKET LINE PERIL
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• Just 24 hours after RHA chairman Glyn Samuel warned members of accepting excessive wage settlements (CM last week), Sir Patrick Lowry — chairman of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Services (ACAS) — told delegates at Sorrento that he could see no reason why the present level of wage settlements in the UN was so high. He also claimed that they could "blunt even further the competitive edge which we so desperately need".
Relative calm had reigned throughout British industry during recent years with the number of strikes down to their lowest levels for 50 years. Today's management was, said Sir Patrick, more confident and more capable of handling its own industrial relations. It was also now able to take a more principled stand on trade union negotiations. "There aren't any managements that are a soft touch when it comes to bargaining."
Recent industrial relations law had done much to temper the current manager/employee scene, although Sir Patrick highlighted the pendulum effect whereby different governments had respectively bought in, then repealed Legislation, with resulting disruption.
In particular Sir Patrick spotlighted the "significant proposals that have been adopted by the TUC and Labour Party which could have a major effect on operators."
On the subject of picketing he said that "if the present laws were repealed we could be back in the situation where picketing at people's homes and flying pickets would also be lawful again", "Secondary action is at the present time very substantially limited — as I would understand it, secondary action of all types would be allowable again under the Labour Party/TUC proposals" RHA members were told that there could be once more legislation covering the compulsory recognition of Trade Unions and changes to legislation relating to the closed shop_ The Labour Party/TUC proposals also contemplated a considerable extension to the rights of individual employees, he said.
The road haulage industry's industrial relations were good according to Sir Patrick "but it can get involved in other people's troubles — like the coal mining dispute and the problems of News International. That is one particularly strong reason why the legal provisions or any changes relating, for example to secondary action and picketing, are so very important to your industry".