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MAKE THEM US, NOT THEM
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If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The comprehensive article "UK long-haul drivers endangered species" in Commercial Motor (CM10-16 July), bears out what my colleague Mick Rennison and I have been saying for a number of years.
We take no pleasure in saying "we told you so", and instead wish to propose constructive proposals for protecting pay rates and working conditions in international haulage.
The T&G Road Transport V888 Branch, of which we are both members, is campaigning on this issue and unlike many truck drivers whose opposition to employers' use of cheap labour amounts to no more than whingeing prejudice against the foreign workers concerned, we are actually doing something constructive.
Log onto our branch website (www.one888truck drivers.org.uk) and see the range of foreign language recruiting leaflets available. These include Russian, which is a second language to most Willi Betz drivers, and SerboCroatian—with Turkish and Bulgarian to be added within the next week.
Following your article we will add Moroccan as soon as we can arrange translation. If any CM reader wants to help with this please contact our T&G Branch—after all, it is our pay and working conditions that are at stake.
The strategy agreed by our T&G branch is the only practical way of doing something. We aim to recruit low-paid foreign workers into the T&G and support and help them in getting a reasonable pay rate for the job. The alternative to our success is that international haulage will go the same way as the British Merchant Marine fleet over the past 25 years.
Our demand for a minimum wage for all workers in haulage, wherever drivers come from, is the only way forward. The alternative is some sort of 'Berlin Wall' around either Europe or the UK. The latter idea appeals to racists and has the additional disadvantage that it will simply not work.
Any Road Transport worker wanting to actually do something about fighting for better pay and conditions is welcome to contact me on 01273 673399.
Rada& Webb, Branch Secretary, 1/888 Road Transport Branch, TI:ta