Crucial efforts to break
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BRS deadlock from our industrial correspondent
• A call for a national strike of 16,000 British Road Services drivers and mates was being considered by the Transport and General Workers' Union executive yesterday. This followed the deadlock on talks about a pay and productivity agreement.
The call—for plenary strike powers• —came from a meeting of TGWU delegates in London last week. It came within 24 hours of the decision by municipal busmen also to seek a pay showdown.
However, a last-minute peace bid is to be made. For BRS and the unions were also meeting at their national joint negotiating committee to try to find a way round the present difficulties. This meeting was also due yesterday—a few hours before the executive meeting.
A BRS stoppage would hit deliveries and supplies to major factories, including the motor industry, and affect export movements to the docks. BRS customers could switch to other hauliers in the private section of the road transport industry but inevitably there would be delays.
The TGWU decision to seek plenary powers came after calls for a strike from Midlands depots had been considered.
The lorrymen want £16 basic wage for a 40-hour week. Negotiations broke down a fortnight ago when the union rejected a new pay offer by the employers. But the principle of productivity improvements has been agreed between the two sides.
The BRS men claim that £16 a week is already being paid by many private haulage companies which made individual productivity deals following the lengthy Liverpool strike earlier this year. They say that drivers in private industry are now 13 a week better off.
There is already a firm strike threat from 3,000 Midlands BRS men who have voted to stop work from this, weekend if there is no sign of a break in the pay deadlock.