Both sides rapped in transporters
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dispute FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT THE Transport and General Workers Union's regional commercial services trade group secretary in the Midlands, Mr. A. D. Law, who played a prominent part in a series of unofficial strikes by road haulage workers in the West Midlands last autumn, was strongly criticized in a report published by the Ministry of Labour last week. The report, by Mr. Jack Scamp, chairman of the Motor Industry Joint Labour Council, and the industry's "troubleshooter", was into the dispute involving 150 Birmingham car transporter drivers at the end of last year, which made 2,000 B.M.C. employees idle.
(In the West Midlands dispute, which at one time or another affected 15 road haulage operators over a demand for a pay rise of £3 a week, described as a "Birmingham differential", Mr. Law was alleged to have given support to the strikers, though their action was unofficial and though he himself was a member of the industry's National Negotiating Committee.) In the car transporter report Mr. Scamp speaks of "strong personalities on both sides" and singles out Mr. Law for special censure. Mr. Law is not the only one to be rapped in the report. On industrial relations the employers lacked "professional expertise" which had impaired their ability to deal with unofficial action. The state of industrial relations in the car delivery business in Birmingham was far from a happy one.
The tendency of management at times to discharge its functions without consultation was largely matched on the local union side by a determination to impose rigid conditions which would make day-to-day management almost impossible. Both sides were open to criticism for not using the agreed disputes procedure. They should have sought Ministry of Labour conciliation failing a settlement, Mr. Scamp declares.
Of the men's five-point claim, Mr. Scamp says this was too high and would have meant an addition of 16.8 per cent on basic rates and with the additional 2s. 6d. per car on all cars ferried from the Longbridge factory to delivery agents' compounds by transporter would have trebled hourly earnings and made the cost of ferrying by transporter uneconomical. On the union's own calculations the bonus would have yielded 15s. on a 64-minute round trip, giving total earnings of El 4s. 6d. per 64 minutes as against 8s. 2s. on the existing rate.
The report concludes: "The claim presented by the union was set too high and, if conceded, would have made it uneconomical to use transporter vehicles for ferrying cars from the factory to dealers' compounds and I am forced to believe that the claim was intended to achieve that object."
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RHA and Potteries
IN a report last week on the legal action being taken by the RHA in the Potteries, reference was made to hauliers leaving the Association failing to give proper motives. This should have read "proper notice-, and arose through an error in transcription.