Pay calm before the ACAS storm?
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AFTER ONLY a couple of weeks' negotiations, the pat tern is already firmly set for the current round of pay talks. The accent on both sides is to keep a low profile and the order "Don't make waves" looks to have gone out to unions and hauliers alike.
Alan Law's powerful Birmingham branch of the Tran sport and General Workers' Union have re-established themselves as the first area to reach agreement after being beaten to the deal in the two previous years by Scotland.
A pay package with the West Midlands assenting hau liers was signed and sealed on November 2 (CM November 5) and other regions should be making similar agreements in the coming weeks.
The package gives drivers a five per cent wage increase — between £2.50 and £4 a week — and raises the overnight subsistence level to £5.50.
It was a surprising deal because none of the "fringe benefits" set out in a 10-point claim which the TGWU national council suggested branches should make (CM October 22) was included.
Targets set by the national council included an occupa tional pension scheme, four weeks holiday and a shorter working week.
Scotland isn't far behind in making a settlement. Agree ment has already been reached on pay and the employers have offered £5.50 subsistence.
A claim for a non-contributory accident insurance scheme, covering death and injury, has also been negotiated and will be brought into operation on February 1 next year.
The one major stumbling block is the sickness payment plan put forward by the union.
Although the Joint Industrial Council could not work out a satisfactory settlement, the employers' representatives agreed to submit the plan to the assenting hauliers group.
The Scottish TEC are due to meet again on November 24, when the hauliers are expected to put forward counter proposals.
If the pattern of the last few years is followed, the rest of the UK will fall into line with the West Midlands and Scottish agreements. That would make it the second year in a row that pay talks with drivers have been settled peacefully without a day being lost through strikes.
This is a big change from the scene in 1974 when hundreds of drivers in Scotland went on strike and won the £40 for 40 hours principle.
Is everything now sweetness and light on the industrial relations front? Or is it the calm before the storm?
Obviously the overwhelming reason for the peace which has descended in the last two years has been the Social Contract and Pay Code.
With fixed maximum wage increases, hauliers and unions have been left with little to fight over. Subsistence levels, too, are covered by the Pay Code and watched carefully by the Department of Employment.
While operators are prepared to pay the maximum wage increases allowable, things should go fairly smoothly.
The Scottish strike sent shock waves through the rest of the country and hauliers have been in no mood to fight alone while other sectors of industry have been paying the maximum.
Operators have also been quick to use the Pay Code to their own advantage. Last year union negotiators asked for a rise of £1.50 in subsistence, an increase of 43 per cent. But employers offered £1, a 23 per cent rise which was the most the Department of Employment would allow. After some haggling the unions accepted the offer.
During this relatively quiet period there have been developments in the wage bargaining structure which will have important implications if ever free collective bargaining is restored.
Since 1959, when the Road Haulage Wages Council was set up, certain employers have been unable to pay wages below a minimum established by agreement on a national basis.
Broadly speaking, the unions have not had a high regard of the work done by the Council. Most employers pay well above the rate it sets and the unions believe they can do better for their members without it.
The employers, on the other hand, believe that some national agreement is necessary since it establishes an across-the-country basis. Extra payments above the minimum are then seen as coming from the individual employer rather than because of the conditions existing in a particular area.
The lines, then, are clearly drawn for a clash between the two sides of the industry in the future. For the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, ACAS, have been holding an investigation into the possible abolition of the Wages Council.
It is likely that when the ACAS report is published shortly it will include a recommendation to the Secretary of State for Employment that the Wages Council be wound up.
Hauliers will demand that something be put in its place: unions are certain to oppose such a move.
Mr E. B. R. Smith said at the recent Road Haulage Association Conference: "We are scared to death that these local agreements will be allowed to proceed in a situation where free collective bargaining takes place.
"This happened two years ago when the Scottish agreement was imposed by brute force. Such a thing could happen again and again."
Mr J. E. Mortimer, the ACAS chairman, was told by delegates to the RHA conference that they wanted to see a National Joint Industrial Council set up to fill the vacuum when the Wages Council is disbanded.
A JIC was set up in Scotland in the middle of last year. Unlike the Wages Council, it only has representatives from unions and employers. There are no independent members appointed by the Secretary of State.
Hauliers would like a similar one set up in England and Wales.
The union view was put to CM by Alan Law in November last year.
JICs, he said, would "tie everything up" and would get no support from him. Even if the Secretary of State directed that such a body be set up, Mr Law said the unions would not attend and therefore it would not work.
The pattern in industry has been the setting up of more and more assenting hauliers groups. ACAS will find this fact difficult to ignore.
Indeed, Mr Mortimer told the RHA conference that the general view was that "these' regional agreements will be extended and developed."
Whatever the ACAS report holds, it cannot please everyone. The calm may well be shattered by a storm once its details are published.