Pay in the south set to rise 3.8%
Page 17
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The prospect of Britain's truck drivers winning aboveinflation 1995 pay increases became brighter last week. The first of the industry's wage negotiating groups has agreed a 3.8% driver pay rise.
Thousands of drivers in the south of England should benefit from the Joint Industrial Council agreement which gives a 32tonne driver £4.15 an hour—an increase of 15p—for a 40-hour week.
The Southern JIC is the first if six regional groups—comprising Road Haulage Association member hauliers and the Transport & General Workers Union—to have thrashed out an agreement.
The Southern J1C deal also increases overnight subsistence pay from £18.30 to £19; meal allowance go up from 90p to £1 and holiday allowance from 22 days now to 25 days a year by 2000.
A day's holiday will be added in in the years 1996, 1998 and 2000.
The TGWU had originally wanted an extra 25p an hour, but says the agreement is a "positive step forward."
Haulier Bob Terris who negotiated the deal says "at today's market it is a fair increase". Terris, managing director of Southampton-based Meachers Transport adds: "But I would say the drivers have earned it—they work very hard for their money."