Yorkshire Inspires National Wages Protest
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rIRST steps have been taken to carry
out a plan for the setting up of national machinery among road-transport employers to take action concerning wages and working conditions. The aim is to mobilize support for the proposals put forward by the Employers' Panel of the Road Haulage Central Wages Board and to organize opposition to the scheme embodied in the draft proposals which were circulated by the Central Board despite the disapproval of the whole of the employers' representatives on that body.
The plan provides for the setting up of a national co-ordinating committee of employers—more or less a revival of the national co-ordinating body which was established during the fight against the wages and conditions scheme formulated by the old National Joint Ctinciliation Board.
The plan for setting up similar machinery at the present juncture was discussed at an emergency meeting of the council of the Federation of Yorkshire Road Trtnsport Employers, held in Leeds on Tuesday, under the chairmanship of Mr. Robert Barr, of Leeds, president of the Federation.
The first move is to make contact with employers' organizations, with the immediate object of establishing coordinating machinery for the five Traffic Areas in the North of England and the Midlands. A similar move for the five Traffic Areas in the South is expected to be made in employers' circles in the South, and a linking-up of both groups, as in the case of the old national co-ordinating committee, is the ultimate aim.
This will undoubtedly be achieved and the unified efforts of such a powerful committee will have tremendous weight.
It is realized, of course, that the period for representations to the Central Board has expired. The Central Board, in fact, will meet in London next Tuesday, July 25. The primary object of the present move is to prepare for the stage when the Central Board has forwarded its final recommendations to the M.o.T.
Before the Minister, makes his decision, there will be a period of three weeks, during which any objections to the final recommendations can be lodged with the Minister.