cropper's column
Page 27
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Wage differentials
EVEN if increases in wages become as regular as tax demands, there still remains the question of how much. So far each firm has determined its own wage policy, and its astuteness in making the right decision is crucial to its success or failure.
For more than 30 years, a scale of minimum wages has been laid down by the Road Haulage Wages Council Indeed, the industry has grown accustomed to these legal minima and its thinking seems to have become sterilized on its wages policy. Since the Labour Government's freeze on wage increases three or four years ago, the trade unions have considered it more advantageous to pursue their claims on an individualistic basis against separate employers or small groups of employers. The published scales of RH fell much more behind the average level of payments than had previously been the pattern. Varying methods of applying up-lift differentials were adopted, but above all the workers tasted the feast of substantial payments above RH.
The unions have now made a policy switch. Instead of campaigning here and there in spearheads in various sectors, their latest claim is being lodged and pursued through the RHWC. Nearly always their policy is hinged to a certain figure of minimum wage, and their Current figure is £20 per week for basic — plus. of course, some costly additions, such as the reduction of the working basic week to 371 hours.
The R HA, for the employers' side of the Wages Council, has to decide its policy in reply. I was surprised to find a body of opinion in the R HA advocating that the claim should be conceded in toto, and even more surprised to hear the reasoning behind this line. It was argued that this would compel all employers on to a kind of national standard of wage payments and so level out competition 'that it would bring greater parity with the costs of own-account operators then made to pay at these scales; that it would force up wages paid by small operators].
It is, in my view, a trap to expect that differentials, once agreed to by any employer, can easily be dropped : an increase in RH scales is likely to have to be adopted, plus the existing differentials being paid in addition, notwithstanding any promises from union leaders that differentials would be absorbed.
Ralph Cropper