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Co-op offers drivers 35% pay rise
Page 10
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• by Guy Sheppard Nearly 1,000 Co-op drivers are being offered a 35% increase in average hourly rates in preparation for the Working Time Directive (WED) in 2005.
The three-stage offer will cut their average working week by seven hours in the next 18 months and boast hourly pay from an average of £7.45 to £10.05. This equates to a salary increase of 18%, despite working far fewer hours.
Chris Metcalfe, group human resources manager for ACC (the Coop's food storage and distribution division) says the proposed changes, which are being presented to drivers this week, have to be staggered because they are so far reaching, "We're changing the culture of how we work, To try to do something towards the end of next year is probably too late."
If accepted by the drivers, a 52-hour week will be introduced from September with average hourly rates jumping by 15%. Further changes will follow in February, 2004, and February, 2005, by which time salaries will average £25,080.
Metcalfe expects the package will reduce labour turnover and boost recruitment in blackspots such as the Midlands and the South-East. Ron Webb, Transport & General Workers Union national secretary for road transport, says employers are increasingly willing to acknowledge the need for improved pay and conditions in the face of growing driver shortages and the launch of the 48-hour week In 2005.
"We are starting to see a pattern
developing where employers are agreeing to significantly higher rates of pay in exchange for more flexibility from the drivers." He adds the ACC offer is even better than one agreed with Castle Cement, which gives drivers a four-and-a-half-day week and boosts their pay by around 9% (CM 3-9 July).
• See Comment page 7.