Second thoughts by unions on 240 for 40 hour
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No let-up in 1975 on labour relations front
by John Darker
AT the turn of the year road transport labour relations showed no sign of entering a quiescent stage, now that most areas of the country have concluded settlements broadly in line with that achieved in Scotland.
No one can yet say the extent of penetration of the "f40 for 40 hours" formula, and many informed observers expect hauliers in country areas to pay considerably less than the larger firms — particularly the long-distance operators — where strong trade union pressure has brought about the higher basic pay.
The latest area to accept £40 pay scales for the 21 ton and over carrying capacity vehicles covers drivers based in the Counties of Avon, Gloucester, Somerset and Wiltshire following negotiations between representative Road Haulage Association employers and the Transport and General Workers' Union. The RHA has advised all its members in these counties.
Although the new pay scales, ranging from £35.50 for the one to 5-ton drivers to the £40 for 21 tons and over, make Wages Council scales look particularly derisory. it must be remembered that they incorporate any "threshold" payments now made. There is growing evidence that trade unionists employed in road haulage. are having second thoughts on the wisdom of the frenzied panic to achieve the £40 target; as the cost of living leaps up they rnay come increasingly to feel that regular cost of living increments would have been a better bargain.
• There have been a number of meetings in the South West to discuss new pay scales and revised conditions of service. While it seems likely that the larger firms in the R HA will concede what the rest of the country has conceded, the special problems of Devon and Cornwall make it unlikely that a large majority of drivers will be paid as highly as in the heavily industrialized areas of the country.
Although the tachograph issue has been largely shelved under the stress of inflation, a recent leading article by Bill French in Wheels, the journal of the United Road Transport Union, stresses that the £2.50 hgv payment may not be dead and buried, and adds: "Be sure that we will not accept tachographs for this price, there will have to be extra payment for them, if they ever come into being." (An URTU claim for tachograph pay some years ago was for an extra £5 a week. Given inflation, perhaps employers should be thinking in terms of £7.50 to £10.00?) Following agreement — very lukewarm on the part of the trade unions -for a recommendation to the Secretary of State on the proposals in RH (99) in November, a resolution from the workers' side urged that the Wages Council should be disbanded immediately and that the Conciliation and Arbitration Service be requested to conduct an urgent investigation into the Road Haulage Industry "with the express purpose of establishing a more realistic and effective method for dealing with wages and conditions of employment". The employers' side refused to associate themselves. with the resolution, and it was left to lie on the table, but a copy was sent to the CAS. This means, according to Wheels, that the workers' side will not in future submit any application to the Wages Council. The stage is set for many more area agreements with groups of employers negotiated by URTU and the TGWU, together or separately.
A "hotch-potch" series of area agreements will not yield much stability for the industry, but even if a Joint Industrial Council supersedes the Wages Council, as is possible, URTU — and there is no reason to think the TGWU would differ — has no confidence in national negotiations because of the weakness of the employers' associations.
The URTU editorial by Bill French touched on the recent settlement of drivers' pay in British Road Services companies and hints that the £40 deal was less satisfactory than might have been thought at first "It was agreed that, in n for the T40', certain benefits would be en such as the 51A-day workers becoming fivt workers. The 1974 lumr holiday payment w cease. The established hour day would be drot and £3 plus 40p bonus w be absorbed into basic I URTU hints that the day week and 10 h changes in NFC comp; will continue to c; problems. What, they will happen to the many tract jobs which operate job and finish basis, wit hours pay?
In the "big league trade unions long-smou ing antipathies betweer TGWU and Amalgarr Union of Enginee Workers threaten to eru road transport, unpredictable c sequences.
In the Dumfries Galloway area of Scot where most hauliers are to have signed the TG agreement giving £40 I.( hours for the over-21 drivers, the union is trying to get an adden requiring all staff to TGWU members. closed shop requirer poses a threat to co builders and painters clerical workers, to union drivers and ahoy to members of Amalgamated Union Engineering Workers.