MEETING THE MINISTER
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PART 2
Last week Commercial Motor published the first part of an exclusive interview with the Minister of Transport. Here Mr. Marsh answers further questions which were put to him by CM's editor
Editor: What positive steps more effective than exhortation can a Minister take to promote better industrial relations? Would you think it appropriate for full summaries of discussions with trade union leaders to be published promptly, to give the members of the unions concerned an idea of what is being discussed in their name? How seriously do you accept the case for participation by workers in local productivity bargaining and in helping to shape policy at higher levels in the industry?
Minister: This is a very difficult one, because we have got the Donovan Report anyhow, on which the Government is making an announcement in the very near future. I do not see that this is a field in which the Governmeat can do an enormous lot. One of the prices you pay for a democracy is free trade unions and free negotiation. It is very easy to point to what is wrong with the British trade union movement but it is rather more difficult to work out what you do that changes it overnight. You can do a lot in terms of consultation, and ensuring that staff are informed of what is going on and that the unions know what is going on; but it is much more a matter for the management of the unions to do this than it is for Government. And I think we tend to start with the assumption that the problem is much worse in Britain than it is. I think we figure about 11th in the list of league table of strikes in the world. I am not underestimating the problems that arise, or the difficulties we have with the multiplicity of unions, but we started with unions very early and most of the people who've got more logical industrial union structures are the people who started from scratch. It's easy enough to sit down with a blank piece of paper and work out the ideal trade union structure: it is a bit more difficult to do it 100 years later.
I think there is a lot that employers can do here in management and a lot that the unions can do. An awful lot of difficulties arise from
the fact that the men don't know what is going on, or they get the wrong idea. This is sometimes the fault of the management. sometimes the fault of the unions and sometimes the fault of both. Unions also have to be prepared to go out and "selltheir policies to their members. If you take the tachograph, where we have had difficulties recently. I can understand the unions having a row if they are not satisfied with the consultations, but I find it a little extraordinary that we have people outside the transport industry thrown Out of work in their thousands because of unofficial strikes which take place before any discussions have ever started. And when you meet the men you do find an awful lot of mis understandings. a lot of doubts and nobody has really talked to them about the subject. This is a job for the employers and unions: it is not my job as a Minister to go round talking to all the men in the transport industry.
Editor: No, but I suppose there is a certain amount of duty upon the Government, if it is going to introduce new measures that affect people's lives, to make it clear what is intended and what is not intended; but of course you can only do this when you yourself have decided, through the negotiations, what is going to be done.
Minister: Yes, when we have decided through the negotiations, and by using the channels which industry on both sides produces to disseminate the information. This question of communications is absolutely crucial on this: we make Ministerial speeches around the place, we issue circulars, but this does not really get to the chaps on the shop floor to the same extent that a really active trade union disseminating information can do. I have an open door to the TGWU if they want to talk, and we try to keep their leadership informed. But one of the basic problems for the very big unions is to get the information through. Editor: The Government has not shirked steps to promote large-scale industrial mergers. Do you think a merger or association of road transport trade unions—a step towards in dustrial trade unionism—would be a good thing?
Minister: I am a trade union official from an industrial union, and I think the industrial union is a good form of organization. I think anything which cuts down the numbers of
unions is a good thing, but this is very difficult to do in practice. You start off with
183 unions on the assumption that 160 are going to put themselves out of business. This is very good in theory but in practice tends to come adrift a bit. But what you get in certain fields is a situation where the unions work so closely together in a federation that they are virtually speaking with one voice. The more this happens, the fewer unions there are, the better. This again is not something which you can impose by Act of Parliament. People in this country have the right to join what unions they want to join. It isn't, as with industry, a problem of finance because very often they would be clearly much better off by merging.
Editor: Would you look kindly on regular meetings under your chairmanship between the RHA, TRTA, transport trade unions, and representatives of transport users, to define current problems and enable regular progress reports to the nation to be made?
Minister: We have a lot of meetings with all these various bodies going on the whole time. I am not sure if this sort of meeting would take the place of that. I am in favour of anything that improves consultation, but I would have thought that at the moment consultation was pretty good.
I would have thought on the whole that it was better to have direct meetings with people on specific issues, including policy, in their separate groupings, if only because it enables you to have a longer discussion and follow the points they want. If you had a sort of parliament of this kind—and I hope I wouldn't be cast in the role of chairman of it—it would finish up with great arguments which might not lead us very far. As far as any consultation or closer contact is concerned. I am all in favour, But this suggested one would probably just be noisy and the people who would come would be the very people we talk to regularly now. You can have a discussion privately with a person and get further than you could if you were talking, say, with the employers with the unions present or the unions with the employers there.
Editor: Will the revised documentation under the Act improve the service given to the goods and passenger sectors of the industry? Have LAs expressed any major reservations about new policies?
Minister: Well, as to paper work we think it will improve things, because it means that we take out half a million operators who previously had carriers' licences, so that is a fair chunk of identifiable saving in paper work. We have obviously got to have new forms for the new licensing arrangements but we intend to go to some trouble to ensure that people don't get worried unnecessarily for information. At the moment I am in the difficult position of having had the views of the Licensing Authorities, but they have got. the job of operating whatever the law is. I cannot really tell you what they are saying on any particular piece of legislation. On the whole I dnot .e any great problem arising from tt-