fliG strike threat
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• The Transport and General Workers Union Eastern Region has voted to go on strike.
At a meeting last Sunday (17 January 1988) members expressed their anger at the lack of progress in the area's annual wage negotiations with the Road Haulage Association.
So far the RI-IA has offered a £5 weekly increase on basic wages and a 70p on the overnight subsistence rate.
TGWU Ipswich Secretary Harold John says that this is not good enough: his members want to be brought into line with the London region settlement of 26 per week across the board. The neighbouring East Midlands Region has agreed on a wage rise.of 25.60 per week.
Last Sunday all of the un ion's shop stewards met in Ipswich, including representatives from large companies like Ferrymasters, Russell Davies and P&O which are not directly involved in the wage claim. The mood of gathering was militant: "We rejected the offer out of hand," says Harold John.
He says that members in these large local firms would sympathetically support any regional TGWU action, and that the main East Coast freight ports such as Felixstowe and Harwich could easily be brought to a halt.
The union says that it does not want a dispute in the Eastern region, but hopes that its strike mandate will give the next meeting on 5 February a greater sense of urgency.
Transport House, the union's headquarters, was due to approve the strike vote this week after which the union will have to ballot drivers at individual firms before they can be called out, in accordance with the Government's new trades union legislation.
It says that the likelihood of industrial action after February's meeting is very strong indeed if no progress is made.
The RHA eastern region negotiating committee has recently changed, beinging in a number of new faces, says district manager Chris Wright, mainly due to retirements and company moves.