I'M ALL RIGHT JACK
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• If John Major wants a class-less society he should start with road haulage: he won't find a better example of the haves and the have-nots. The have-nots are the 35% of all truck drivers whose earnings last year were below the minimum level set by the Low Pay Unit.
The haves? According to employment consultants Reward Group, transport management salaries are now outstripping increases in other industries as well as inflation.
If ever there was a gop between "workers and management" then it has to be in road haulage. Ten years ago CM attended the RHA conference at Torquay during one of the bleakest economic periods the industry had known. You'd never have guessed it with all the limousines parked in front of the Hotel. Crisis, what crisis? If the RHA held its 1993 conference in Torquay today would we still see the same thing?
Have we really not moved beyond the Ealing comedies of the fifties which so accurately lampooned British industry? Do we still live in a world where the workers know their place and the bosses take great pleasure in letting them know it?
If the Thatcherite years produced one good thing it was the value, though not always the practice, of worker involvement. Witness the success of NFC Until every haulage boss in the country accepts that there's more to a successful company than a new Jag outside the office he shouldn't be surprised if his workforce don't share his enthusiasm for the job. Considering the money they earn, why should they?