URTU president warns of strikes
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UNITED Road Transport Union president Tony Fallon has told his members that the union is opposed to a phase three incomes policy without a freeze on prices.
Mr Fallon said that although the majority of trade unions are loyal to the Government, that loyalty can be over-stretched. He said that despite the Government's Social Contract, prices are still rising and inflation is still in double figures.
"The truth is that we have a wages policy but no prices policy worth talking about. Any shopkeeper, never mind manufacturer, can increase his prices with near impunity," said Mr Fallon.
He said that he was asking for a gradual return to free collective bargaining for the members with a less rigid wage agreement with the Government which would pave the way back to full free collective bargaining.
And he warned that failure to find a way back could lead to strikes similai to the Leyland toolroom workers' dispute which he described as "a symptom of a fatal disease" which no one could afford.
He said that the union policy had been arrived at after letters and a meeting of union branches had been considered by the union's executive committee and he described comments from branches as "of great value".
But he pointed out that he was not advocating a wages explosion because that would only lead to the strongest people getting the biggest slice of the market.