Work measurement in vehicle :maintenance
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THE top management of BRS will not have been pleased to read Report No. 90 of the Prices and Incomes Board: "Pay of Vehicle Maintenance Workers in British Road Services". No one enjoys even a mild spanking in public. By rubbing in hard the lesson that work measurement techniques are possible for maintenance tasks on a mixed fleet of vehicles the Board, by implication, suggest that BRS engineering and staff management has not moved with the times.
Mr. Aubrey Jones' Board has drawn attention to bigger and more contentious issues since it established itself as the headmaster of British industry. But its review of maintenance workers' pay was a tough assignment with implications for the whole road transport industry, and, indeed, for the vehicle manufacturing industry, because the vehicles churned out so easily must be maintained. It would be surprising if the Board do not return to this area before long.
The pay increase negotiated in May 1968 for the BRS maintenance and repair grades would have added about 12 per cent to the wages bill. Before the reference by Mrs. Barbara Castle and Mr. Richard Marsh to the Board, an interim pay increase of 3 per cent for all grades was allowed, from last July. (Experience suggests that if the full award had been allowed it would have prompted demands for similar percentage increases from other sections of BRS, with a probable boomerang effect across the whole transport field. But that is by the way.)
The PIB decided to recommend that BRS should pay a further 41 per cent—to make a total of 74 per cent—on conclusion of an agreement for a programme of work study and training. It is worth looking at the reasons for this significant finding.
Basic pay
BRS skilled maintenance grades' basic pay is £15 5s 5d but their average weekly earnings (E23 8s 1d) reflect largely the overtime element in an average working week of 511 hours. Time workers in the engineering industry—with whom vehicle maintenance workers compare themselves—achieve higher earnings working only 45 hours a week. Thus the basic hourly earnings of BRS skilled workers are much below those of workers in the engineering industry.
Although motor transport mechanics (grade A) in the GPO enjoy a basic provincial rate of £19 Is 6d for 40 hours their average earnings are less than the BRS skilled men because GPO overtime seldom exceeds 3 hours per week.
All pay questions are invariably affected by the element of comparability which is as potent a factor for members of the boards of nationalized industries as it is on the shop floor. It waS inevitable that the PIB should be reminded of the i17 4s Od offered to test assistants in the vehicle testing stations of the Ministry of Transport. Who, I wonder, dreamed up the £17 4s Od rate for posts demanding no previous experience, but "mechanical aptitude and an ability to benefit from training"? The rate chosen is within a whisker the mid-point between the BRS skilled mechanics' rate and the GPO grade A mechanics' rate!
Both BRS and the trade unions were concerned at deterioration of the BRS maintenance pay rates relative to comparable employment since the last increase in July 1967. The rates of skilled workers in municipal bus garages were increased by 20s a week in December 1967 and the minimum skilled rates for workers in the vehicle repair trades went up by 40s a week in the same month of 1967. Who can be surprised that BRS managers and their vitally important maintenance workers were equally concerned at the trend?
It would be interesting to know whether the average age of vehicle maintenance work ers in road transport as a whole is higher than the average age of the whole working population. If this were proved to be so, it would indicate that the industry is not getting anything like its fair share of youngsters. (The industrY may not deserve to do so, but that is another matter!) In the case of BRS maintenance staff the PIB found that only some 30 per cent were under 40 years ofage compared with 50 per cent in the whole working population. Against that, labour turnover in BRS workshops was significantly lower than in all manufacturing industries.
But the loyalty of this "old brigade" could not be stretched too far. Industrial relations deteriorated. In a number of workshops a "go slow" was started; there was an insistence on craft demarcation and a refusal to co-operate in the further extension of method study. BRS management claimed that to reduce downtime of vehicles undergoing repair and maintenance and to raise standards of maintenance the full pay increase negotiated should be paid to halt the loss of skilled men.
The negotiated agreement contained two main provisions relating to productivity. There was to be an increase in the extent of shoft working; from the 17 per cent of staff currently employed on shifts to perhaps as much as 27 per cent. And an acceptance of more flexible duties, "within the technical capabilities of the individual, where this will enhance productivity".
The report quotes the notes for guidance agreed by BRS and the unions: "The intention . . is to ensure that a worker shall be prepared to do work other than his own provided that it is within his capacity and that the following is observed;
(i) He shall not be expected to perform work involving matters affecting safety for which he has not been trained.
(ii) He will only be asked to do work other than his own where: (a) It is within his grade.
(13) There is either none of his own work available or this will avoid delay in finishing a job."
The Board considered that the proviso that such work should be within the worker's grade should be dropped. "This would make it possible, in appropriate eircuinstances, for skilled men to do semi-skilled and unskilled work in -their own trade as well as to do skilled work in another trade."
Additional savings
BRS considered that the implementation of the agreement would reduce downtime of vehicles by 10 per cent, thus yielding an addition to net revenue of £475,000. They also wished to count as additional savings "the avoidance of losses which, in the absence of the agreement, they would expect to incur at some date in the future." The PIB regarded the latter point as too hypothetical, preferring to accept the £475,000 a year as the most realistic figure of probable savings.
The BRS estimated savings implied that output per man would be raised by 10 per cent within 12 months. Says the report: "We think that this is a high figure and one that is only likely to be realized if there is a substantial extension of work study. British Road Services have already done some work in this field but there is little or no objective information available to management on the amount of work to be expected from the maintenance labour force. Work measurement is often said to be impracticable for vehicle maintenance work but whereas there is something to this point, our own inquiries suggest that the problem may not be quite as difficult as it is made out to be...."