T&G pushes for more
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by Karen Miles • The Transport and General Workers Union has launched a campaign to win drivers an extra £10 a week, a £5-an-hour minimum rate and improved sick pay and pensions.
The TGWU, which represents 50,000 drivers in the hire or reward sector, says the £5 equates to a 3% pay rise: "We believe the industry can afford it—and that it is completely necessary," says Danny Bryan, TGWU national secretary for commercial road transport. "There is a mood of determination."
I The union is also preparing to send out strike ballot papers to the 70 drivers working for container haulier Goodway based at the company's three depots at Grays in Essex, Felixstowe and Manchester.
Goodway has offered a 2% rise to drivers with less than three years' service and 1% to drivers with more than three years. The union estimates drivers earn around £4.60 an hour; it wants an increase on that figure of about 2.5%.
Les Shaw, TGWU officer for East Anglia, says: "Goodway isn't a bad company in the way it treats its drivers but we're saying to them that if they refuse to pay any more then (hey will lose their drivers anyway to competitors."