Employers' Panels' Authority Questioned
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IT is understood that the Minister of
Transport is to have a consultation with members of the National Joint Conciliation Board, in London to-day (Friday, March 25) concerning the constitution of the new central board recommended by the Baillie Committee. This, probably, foreshadows the early introduction of the new Road Traffic Bill for the purpose of implementing, in the form of legislation, recommendations of the Baillie Committee.
A suggestion to be discussed at to-day's consultation, it is gathered, is that the employers' and employees' panels of the new Central Board shall each comprise nine national representatives and one representative from each of the traffic areas in England and and Wales. This conference will also consider, of course, the decisions of the National Joint Conciliation Board last week which resulted in the calling-off of the threatened strike. No doubt the resolutions passed at the last national conference of traffic area employers' panels will be reviewed in the light of the new situation. These resolutions embodied a refusal to recognize that the present employers' panel of the National Joint Conciliation Board has authority to decide. any matters on behalf of the industry, and a recommendation that a new national negotiating body for the employers should be set up pending the introduction of legislatiOn based on the report of the Baillie Committee.' This suggested body, it was recommended, should take the form of a national coordinating committee representative of the traffic area employers' panels in England and Wales. In reaching its decisions last week, the National Board appears to have taken no cognizance of the refusal of the 'traffic area employers' panels to recognize the authority of the present
national employers' panel. The settle. ment announcement issued by the Board said : "The National Joint Conciliation Board announces that all outstanding differences have been satisfactorily disposed of." and it stated that " the three national employers' organizations have agreed to recommend to their respective members acceptance of the decisions of the Board as now amended." But representatives of these, same national organizatiors comprise to a large extent the traffic area employers' panels.
The traffic area employers' panels' challenge was supported at a meeting in Manchester last week of members of the joint organization of the Amalgamated Horse and Motor Owners Association, Ltd., dad the South-East Lancashire area of the C.M.U.A. Resolutions onsimilar lines were passed at a meeting of Yorkshire employers held in Leeds on March M.
At a meeting of members of the Yorkshire employers' panel and other Yorkshire employers, in Leeds on Monday last, an outcome was the decision to consult with other trafficarea employers' panels. The National Board's interim agreement for a wages increase of 3s. per week for adults and 2s per week for youths has a special importance to Yorkshire in that, hitherto, the Yorkshire traffic area employers' panel has consistently refused to accept the National Board's Grade I scale of wages. The outcome of this opposition was the introduction of the Yorkshire employers' agreement, which provides for wages ranging up to the equivalent of the National Board's Grade 2. It is understood that at Monday's meeting the actual increases agreed on by the National Board were regarded favourably, but there was opposition to the acceptance of the Grade 1 scale of wages.