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Page 63
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By JANUS
IN the ordinary way, the trade unions would have to wait for something like 12 months before presenting a new claim to the Road haulage Wages Council with any hope of success. The likelihood of a lull would be even stronger than usual at the present time. In some industries, the latest rise in wages has been coupled with a promise of a standstill for a year, or of joint consultation to improve efficiency, or of both. ft ,would seem a particularly had time for the Transport and General Workers' Union to ask for more, while the employers are still getting accustomed to R.H.(62).
In the circumstances, the increase in the speed limit is a fortunate peg on which to hang a demand for an increase in wages. The unions have fought their way into a position where they are bound to get something, that must be roughly equivalent to the bonus of 15 per cent, promised by British "Road Services when satisfactory conditions have been worked out.
The employers' representatives on the Wages Council must put up a fight when the inevitable demand comes. They will be forced to do so by the people they represent. . There is. a feeling in the road haulage industry that the wages situation is out of hand. In theory, higher pay should be reflected in higher charges. In practice, hauliers have never found it easy to put. up . their rates without fairly strenuous arguments with the customer.
He is less amenable than ever when there is a rapid succession of wage increases. He asks for more and more reasons. If the vehicles that carry his traffic are of the lighter type. he will find it baffling to be told of a rates increase, following a wages increase, following a speed limit increase that has no effect whatever on the services he receives. Consumer resistance will harden. In fact, the situation may become serious for hauliers if they cannot find some way of putting their wages structure on a more rational basis.
Further Concessions
But their opposition to the union demand on this occasion can hardly have effect. They must now make a further concession to the workers. Even the amount is fixed within narrow limits. All that remains for manoeuvre is the precise way in which the increase should be given. The employers should concentrate on this aspect. They have every reason for refusing merely to imitate B.R.S. As I pointed out last week, the bonus system cannot easily be incorporated into the Road Haulage Wages Orders, and a reduction in the working day lies outside the range of the Wages Council.
What the independent hauliers must seek is an arrangement more adapted to their own circumstances, whilst giving abput the same amount in wages as the B.R.S. scheme. A possible-solution of the problem lies ready to hand. Temporarily deprived of a favourable atmosphere for pushing a straightforward wages claim, the trade unions in many industries are reviving the agitation for a shorter working week.
The intention, they maintain, is not to get more pay, but to reduce the number of hours worked. The assumption is that overtime is common only because the basic wage is insufficient and that, once the cause is corrected, the effect will disappear. Few people take this argument seriously, but there is a good deal of sympathy with the demand that the basic week should be no more than 40 hours over industry as a whole..
At a guess, the demand is likely to be the next put forward by the Transport and General Workers' Union, after they have made as much as possible out of the speed limit issue. The demand-may or may not be coupled with a proposal to amend Section 19, mainly by reducing the maximum working day from 11 hours to 10. What cards they have, the employers ought to play quickly. To forestall the unions, and settle the speed limit issue at one stroke, they should themselves propose a reduction of the basic week from 44 to 40 hours.
This should have roughly the same effect as the BA.S. bonus of 15 per cent, but it would be more logical. It would retain the present distinction between basic wage and overtime, and it would fit without difficulty into the framework of the existing scales of wages. It should also be notably different from any percentage increase, in that it carries the wage scales on to a plane where speed limits and 10-hour days can no longer be invoked.
Almost Inevitable
if the cut in the basic week points the way towards a cut in the basic day, it is only anticipating what is likely to happen. Hauliers, as well as trade and industry, do not greatly favour the reduction from 11 to 10 hours. They may find it almost inevitable in view of what is already proposed by B,R.S. on a voluntary basis.
The 40-hour week may anticipate the shorter day, but will also allow for it. When their avowed purpose is to give more leisure to the worker, the unions would be hard put to it to justify a further wage increase for a 10-hour day that is the logical result of a 40-hour week. If the shorter week is offered first, and no doubt accepted, the employers can and should claim that the wage increase involved will cover a possible amendment of Section 19, as well as the issue of the speed limit. A line can be drawn, and any future wage negotiations will have to start from a point on the farther side.
Not long ago, a" Suggestion on the lines I have indicated would have been impracticable. Any idea of a bargain between employers and workers seemed out of the 'fashion. The unions expected, and usually succeeded in getting. a straightforward rise with no strings attached.
The twin reports of the court of inquiry under Professor D. T. Jack have made the package agreement once more respectable. What is more to the point, the industries concerned, engineering and shipbuilding, have to some extent agreed with the proposals of the court of inquiry, although not without some reservations, and mutterings from the left. My proposal for the road• haulage industry is in effect a package agreement. It would contain the 40-hour week, a settlement of the argument about the speed limit, and an undertaking that the 10-hour day, if it ever came into force, would not be made the subject of a wages claim.
The stage is now setting itself for the next move, the next turn of the spiral. The employers should at least consider whether this time they should not take the initiative themselves