A More Comprehensive
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-WAGES ORDER
AANY 'radical departures from pre11'1 vious practice are embodied in the new Order, made this week, by the Minister of Labour and National Service. It is published as R.H. (8), is to be posted up with the previous order, known as R.H. (6), so that the two can be read in conjunction, and takes effect on Monday next, August 25.
The principal provision is, of course, the further increase in the standard rates of pay. The wages of all adult workers in the haulage industry, that is, drivers, mates and statutory attendants, are increased by 4s. per week. The wages of workers under 21 years of age are increased by 2s. 3d. per week. The subsistence allowance in respect of all workers is increased from 65. to 7s. for each period of rest not exceeding 14 hours.
There is a host of new provisions to which operators will do well to give serious attention. They relate to the wages to he paid to drivers in training, to the remuneration of female workers, to payment to haulage workers of from 14 to 21 years of age, and to the wages of workers engaged in the furniture, warehousing and removing industry. The new Order is, in effect, more comprehensive in its scope than any previous one: it is also, as is perhaps inevitable, more complicated.
How Now Drivers Stand Perhaps those clauses which provide for the training of new drivers are most interesting. The industry has for some time been pressing for their inclusion. It is unlikely that, as they stand, they will give entire satisfaction. The period prescribed is four weeks, during which the trainee receives a wage lower than the standard. In the case of the driver of a pteam wagon, in the London Area, the wage is 23 16s. 6d. per week, which is 13s, per week less than the standard of 2.4 Os. ad. per week. Trainee drivers of vehicles other than steam wagons, receive 23 14s. 6d, per week, provided that the vehicle has a carrying capacity of not less than one ton.
The standard rates vary from 23 19s. 6d. up to 334 9s, 6d., so that the difference may be 5s. per week or aS much as 15s. per week. Similar differences are provided 'for in respect of vehicles outside the London Area, and in regard to long-distance services, as shown in the accompanying schedules. The differentiation, in the graded areas, between trainees and fully fledged drivers is, however, very small, being only is. .8d. per week in the case of vehicles of 30-cwt. capacity; although it rises to 14s. per week in respect of drivers of the largest-capacity vehicles.
The period allowed for training is absurdly short. It should have been 12. months at least, with, possibly, a preliminary step up in the wage after six months. It is probably true that a man may learn to drive a motor vehicle in four weeks, but he is not, at the end of that period, an expert driver. Moreover, in the majority of branches of the industry a driver does not become an efficient servant in less than a year, for there are many things to learn, other than the handling of the vehicle, before the man becomes really expert at his job.
It would seem, too, that it would have been better to have instituted a prescribed difference between the standard, rate and that for trainees. One shilling and sixpence per week is too little, and 15s. per week too great, a difference ; 10s. per week all round would have been more reasonable.
Provision for the special conditions of the furniture, warehousing and removing industry is long overdue. We have pointed out the need for it on more than one occasion • in the past. Foremen, packers and porters in that industry are now specified and their wages scheduled.
Differentiation is also made between drivers of tractors on regular haulage and those operating the small industrial type of road tractor, of not more than 2 tons unladen weight, employed in the furniture-removing industry. The driver of a tractor in the London Area receives 24 9.3 fid. per week. If the vehicle be of the unladen weight just specified and be used exclusively for furniture-removal work, the wage is 24 5s. 6d.
A modification has been made in respect of statutory attendants which seems to need some explanation. The term is now used in respect only of those under 18 years of age. Previously the Wording has been " Statutory attendantS and mates :-'Mates on steam wagons, 23 12s. 6d.
"Statutory attendants and mates (18 years-of age or over) 23 lOs. 6d."
Now there is provision for mates (all ages) on steam wagons, the rate of wages (London Area) being 23 16s. 6d. for statutory attendants under 18 years of age, wage 22 6s. 3d., and for "other haulage workers " of various ages from 14 to 21 or over, the wage scale rising from 21 2s, 3d. to £3 14s. 8d. The new wording provides more effective cover.
Pay of Women Workers Female workers are' to be paid, during the first 12 weeks of employment in the trade, a wage amounting to 80 per cent, of the statutory remuneration which would be applicable to a male worker of the same age, with the same length of employment in the trade, and employed on the same work. During the next 26 weeks of such employment the wage is increased to 90 per cent. of the corresponding scale for male . workers. After 39 weeks employment in the trade a female worker is entitled to be paid the same wage as a male worker similarly employed, of the same age.
The provisions whereby drivers and attendants on vehicles picking up or setting down in districts where the scales of wages are higher than those applicable to the locality in which the workers' home depot is situated shall be paid on the higher scale do not apply to firemen, packers and parties in the furniture warehousing and removing industry.
There are one or two comparatively insignificant modifications in the method of calculating overtime.
The need for reading R.H. (8) • in conjunction with R.H.(13), and for posting both of them, seems to arise only from the fact that Part H of the latter "Grading-Applicability of Scales of Remuneration" has been omitted from R.H. (8) , but still applies,