Wages round: boil or virility test?
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FHE ANNUAL RITE of the wages • ound, for many people, cerainly those over 50, in managenent — or in politics — is an igonising bore.
Officials of trade unions preiumably regard the yearly hagjles as a test of virility on the )utcome of which their mem)ership judges them. Pen;loners, and everyone of any ige with enough imagination to Dok ahead, thinks of wage barlaining with worried detachnent: what does it mean for the ountry — for employment proslects? What will this year's pay ound do to my pension, today, nd in future years?
Pay bargaining for settlements -1 early 1981 is taking place gainst the worst trade slump ince the Thirties. Many of those Id enough to remember that ecade would say that our luatic system for determining ay has been responsible for the less the country is now in. orry drivers in 1939 often arned less than £3 a week. A ay rise of five shillings (25p) a reek was something to jump ver the moon about.
Today, any pay rise that does ot fully cover anticipated ineases in the cost of living is ?en as a disaster by wage earn-s and their trade unions, lough some observers heave a gh of relief: "At last," they say, breath of sanity."
From the standpoint of the -ansport and General Workers' nion, officers and members are wing a rough time biting on a _diet which is hard and tastes )sty. Events are moving so Jickly that any settlement hich makes pay packets ightly heavier is better than )thing, through six months ago wone predicting road haulage fflements below six per cent mild not have been taken riously.
Early in August when I talked
a senior industrial relations anager in the NFC group he edicted pay settlements of 10 !rcent, against the claim then ooted of about double. I
thought a ten per cent settlement then most unlikely, and said so, but well under 10 per cent now seems probable for most road haulage employees, It is fair to mention that I have heard of exceptions, with some firms in the food industry paying drivers 15 per cent or more in return for productivity and tachograph concessions. But though these relate to TGWU members, and tanker drivers too seem about to conclude settlements in this area, the time has gone when hard pressed drivers working for RHA members could say: "He's getting it, I want the same."
The quantification of pay claims, and pay settlements for that matter, is a subtle art. Each side may have motives in exaggerating or scaling down the actual affects of a settlement. What is noteworthy is that despite all the national furore about the need for moderation, with the evidence of industries collapsing like ninepins, and many road hauliers giving up the struggle, the TGWU has not wanted to bow to the storm, at least initially.
For example, Ken Williams, RHA Eastern Area secretary, calculated that the claim put to his JIC by the TGWU delegates totted up not to 20 per cent but to 49 per cent, when all the sideeffects were included. That would have been the effect of shorter working hours, extra holidays, better insurance provisi on s, improved meal and subsistence allowances etc.
Despite the union's insistence that each item in the claim should be discussed methodically there was no disposition by shop stewards at the end of the day to withdraw or greatly cut down particular items. There was the counter: "All parts of the claim are negotiable."
One of the good things about the area JICs which hopefully will survive the traumas of pay negotiations this time round — is that some serious efforts seem to be made by both sides for relationships to be on a reasonably friendly footing. At Cambridge, the absurdly costly claim was, I'm told, considered with good-tempered patience by the employers. Had it not been the meeting could have ended in an uproar within an hour.
At the Southern Area negotiations, Albert Simpson, the area secretary, says the discussions were realistic and took place in an harmonious atmosphere. The paid union officers, whose jobs were not "on the line" as some of the shop stewards may have felt, went out of their way to be concilatory, making suggestions which could have helped cash flow problems of hard-pressed hauliers.
It is surely probable that everyone working in road haulage knows of the parlous state of the industry and its inability to do anything about it, save scale down activities to meet reduced market demands, but in the most humane way possible. What must be exercising both employers and trade unions is that redundancies are taking place at the same time as new entrants glide into the industry to make matters worse!
Albert Simpson says he gets five calls a week from members seeking advice on redundancy procedures. He is worried about the state of the industry in for or five years' time if nothing done to stem the flow of nev corners — 150 new standar licences granted in the Sout east in the last two months.
However desperate the corr mercial position of profession road hauliers today, employer and trade unions cannot shru off all responsibility for it.
What is true of the whol country — that for years past w have paid ourselves far mor than was justified by producti% ity or efficiency improvement — is equally true in road hau lag for hire or reward. Peter Thornp son, chief executive of th National Freight Company, ha spelt out that message effecti vely. • It is broadly true that tract unions making pay claims in re cent years have not wanted tc know about productivity — thi size of the settlement has beer the chief motivation, weighec against the "going rate". Ir much pay bargaining the hag gling over the rise to 13( conceded has not been noti ceably eased by the certainty o consequential redundancies Those surviving as the goodie: were paid out could smirk lik€ the winners in musical chairs.
But while the going was gooc professional road hauliers surely
leglected to educate their workorce about the simple realities af economics. So long as fat ises, not earned by productivity, :ould be passed on to more or ess quiescent customers, who :ared a fig? The customers in urn charged their customers a at more, and the merry dance vent on.
Now we are back in the Alice n Wonderland territory of pay estraint by exhortation, or by :ontrol of cash limits. Mrs -hatcher's six per cent to most Kablic servants is remarkably ike the five per cent which lost vlr Callaghan the election.
It would be heartening to ecord that against this miserable background some responsi)le road transport leaders are rying to urge the good sense of a national pay bargaining aystem, perhaps on the Swedish nodel, whereby the maximum )ercentage rise that the nation an afford is decided by discus;ion between Government, em)loyers and trade unions. Given ;uch a system, which must be ntroduced before long if our social fabric is not to be torn to 3its, the problem of "pecking )rder" remains.
Did the serious drivers' strike slmost two years ago help or -Under lorry drivers' public standing? When I put this ques:ion to Jack Ashwell, the 1-GWU's road transport national secretary, he could not be defilite about where drivers now stand in the pecking order, nor lad he any expectation that a 'Swedish" solution was on the 3ards in Britain. He did concede :hat the TGWU would "consider" pay deals lasting for two years.
The next few months, if my inquiries prove correct, will see a most fascinating interchange between The RHA and the TGWU. Possibly the FTA will also join the talks. Meetings between these bodies to concert a common approach to the Transport Minister on licensing, designed to restrict new entrants to an industry which cannot sustain its present numbers, will be watched with great interest. Ideas canvassed by Mr Ashwell include using the analogy of the EEC's approach to small farmers. They, I gather, are offered £750 per dairy cow to get out of the farming industry. Why not a scheme based on similar principles to free road haulage of its too numerous force of small hauliers.
Whether the — near bankrupt — EEC would or could cough up the lolly to rescue the British road haulage industry from its own stupidity, misfortune, legislative incompetence — take your choice — is doubtful. It remains true that both the TGWU and the RHA might sensibly wish for that to happen.
Jack Ashwell says the TGWU is gearing itself to make hopefully joint appeals with the RHA against most new 0-licence applications, and indeed, many renewals. He suggests that LAs are aware of the inbuilt "margin" for expansion on most licences and that it is plain crazy to inject fresh blood into the industry until there is evidence of need, And the TGWU seems minded to press every possible argument which could stem the flood-tide of hopeful newcomers, not excluding toughening up the CPC requirements.
Ashwell thinks LAs could consider new 0-licence applications with respect to financial provisions in the wages context. If newcomers intend to cut wages then they face the determination of the TGWU to make a rare fuss about it.
I have been fascinated to match the very sincere concern of Jack Ashwell, and the ideas this has generated, with what I can surmise about a likely RHA response.
Ashwell is much concerned that the Government have got rid of Schedule 11 and Wages Council protection making trade unions think more seriously about industrial action to protect members' pay and living standards, He seems to argue that firms paying less than agreed JIC rates can be brought into line, possibly by LAs putting conditions on licences on minimum pay rates. For if the small hauliers can erode progressively the position of the larger firms in the industry, such firms — the bulwark of the RHA in terms of national standing — and the TGWU will suffer equally. He has a point in an industry where wages are a crucial element in freight rates.
What is likely to be the outcome if the TGWU's 143 area offices have to spend time concerting evidence about potential new entrants to road haulage, hopefully in full concert with the RHA's area officers, remains to be seen. As an old RRNC "buff" I know how timeconsuming this can be, and what the LAs will make of it all remains to be seen.
The possible threat to the JIC machinery, set up after TGWU (and URTUY pressure on ACAS to recommend the dissolution of the industry's clapped out Wages Council, if many RHA members say they cannot afford and will not pay agreed JIC rates, poses a serious labour relations problem. If that was the outcome sought by the Government, the industry and its customers will have to face the consequences.
Albert Simpson, the RHA secretary at Winchester, speculates in worried fashion about the shape of the industry in four or five years' time. He thinks there is a serious risk that the industry will consist of a mass of two/three-vehicle operators, when the more substantial firms have been eroded by the fierce competition, exercised through rate and wage cutting, of small firms. He says he can recruit owner-drivers, whereas for many obvious reasons the TGWU finds this difficult.
In the major strike of lorry drivers two years ago it was largely the bigger firms who
were hit. The small hauliers ca ried on merrily, glad to have chance to pick up traffic from bi brothers. If I interpret Albe Simpson correctly, I think he he grave doubts about some t Jack Ashwell's "grand theories' and I am inclined to doubt ho, far LAs will be amenable — witl out some major changes in tl. licensing law — to respond trade union pleas about the evi of wage cutting pirates makin life increasingly impossible ft responsible hauliers.
Perhaps Norman Fowle when he meets the TGWU ar the RHA, together or separatel may be inspired to tell LAs to p a fresh gloss on the legislatiE seen by many of Us as of d bious benefit to road haulag The key factor, in my view, is tl attitude of the FTA, that mon ment to the efficacy of mark forces.
Wearing its British Shippe Council hat the FTA has recent lamented the evil effects world shipping, especial British and European operatoi of the unfair subsidisation of S viet bloc competitors. If I we speaking for the TGWU, or i deed the RHA, I would tell tl Minister that there is a dirE parallel between cut-ra shipping competitors from S viet bloc countries and t swarm of under-capitalisa would-be road hauliers seekil entry to an industry already its knees because of Gover ment efforts to straighten ow sick economy.
It occurs to me that if the F buyers of transport in the UK ! too far down the market road enabling the irresponsible pri and wage cutters to prospi they may be inviting their col panics to get rid of own-accoL fleets.
By and large, own-accoL operators pay good wages drivers, often better than tho paid by professional haulie Many of these drivers ha TGWU or other union cards. S surmise that before long, wh ever market philosophies wot seem to dictate, there will some interesting labour re tions discussions in own-i count transport departments.
Altogether, an interesti labour relations brew. If I wen cartoonist what fun it would to depict Jack Ashwell and t RHA's George Newman asAq ing the solemnization of th marriage with the Transp Minister wearing a dog coil Strange bedfellows in adversil