Detailed wages probe by PIB
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• A highly informative survey of road haulage workers' pay may reinforce the determination of employers to resist pay increases not fully backed by higher productivity. The survey, issued as a statistical supplement to the Charges, Costs and Wages report No. 40 published in December (CM December 8), shows that no less than 185,000 day drivers earn on average £22 per week and 8,500 night drivers earn on average £27 19s. The average earnings of all workers in the industry are £22 3s 8d, yet the pay of "other workers" in the industrynon-drivers—averaged only £18 12s 4d.
The high incidence of overtime earnings as a proportion of total earnings comes out very clearly. For all drivers this is 37.7 per cent and for day/night workers no less than 47.5 per cent. This contrasts with the "other workers" category of 29.1 per cent.
Overtime earnings on average for over 191,000 drivers yielded £8 16s 7d and day/ night workers received on average an extra £12 7s 10d on top of basic wages. No less than 66.4 per cent of all drivers received some form of incentive bonus yielding on average £3 2s lid per week and, additionally, 32 per cent of all drivers received "other payments" yielding £1 lOs 9d per week.
Overtime hours are shown to vary from 28.8 for day/night workers to 11.2 for "other workers" with an industry average of 17.4 (58.3 hours per week).
The headline catching "over £2,000 a year" drivers are mostly night drivers: 12.7 per cent in this category earn more than £40 per week but they have to put in more than 70 hours a week for the privilege; 3.7 per cent of day drivers working 70 plus hours weekly are in the over £2,000 a year class— no day driver working less than 55 hours earns so much.
The sampling methods employed called for returns from all firms with 200 or more vehicles with a much smaller participation from the smaller firms in the industry. The Road Haulage Association provided details of firms engaged in milk collection, either in bulk from farms or depots, and a sample of one in 40 firms involved in A and B class haulage—and subject to the scope of the Road Haulage Wages Council—was provided by the Ministry of Labour.
• The High Court has reserved judgement in the case (CM last week) in which James Holden, Manchester, sued Lloyd's underwriters for f5,421 following rejection of an insurance claim resulting from loss of a lorry load of copper by theft.