yneside go for £1 00 basic for 35 hours
Page 3
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ALL for a £100 basic wage for a 35-hour week and a return to .tonal wage negotiations will be made when Transport and Gen1 Workers Union haulage drivers' delegates meet later this th.
comes from Tyneside, ere the weak negotiating Acture has taken a battering year, and where, last week, drivers agreed to take strike on against companies which st claims for an £83 basic pay p-weight drivers working 40 rs.
round 700 drivers, representg the 4,000 men in the area, tended a mass meeting in ,iwcastle-upon-Tyne last Sun17, and pressed for a claim of 00 for 35 hours to be pursued -ter the national hire and ward conference of the TGWU :er this month.
TGWU organiser Geoff igleston told CM that this iim is needed to take account the compulsory use of the hograph on January 1.
He conceded that the drivers ye probably lost out through )ir past objection to the tacho3ph, but said that additional yment is justified, not because 3 drivers need to be compen:ed for using the tachograph, t because, he claimed, many erators' breaches of drivers' urs will be ended by the accue information on the chart.
V1r Eggleston went on to say it, otherwise, operators who 3 forced to operate within urs regulations will pay drivaccording to the number of urs shown on the chart, and -ne drivers could suffer loss of .nings.
rhe Tyneside drivers also want a return to a national wage negotiating structure to determine a basic wage and subsistence level.
Teesside drivers have voted meanwhile for the existing regional negotiating structure to be given one last chance of survival, and have pressed for the hire and reward conference decisions to be adhered to strictly.
Middlesbrough TGWU officer John Yates explained that they want the conference to agree a realistic figure, and for no area to settle for anything less in course of negotiations.
Where this cannot be settled, a failure to agree should be registered and an approach then made nationally to the Road Haulage Association. If that achieves nothing, then they would refer the matter to the Union with a view to taking national industrial action.
He said that drivers want an end to the "domino effect" of one area's settlement leading to similar deals elsewhere.
At last weekend's meeting, the Tyneside drivers also voted to take industrial action against any employers in the area which resist their claims for an £83 basic rate from July 1.
Mr Eggleston said that around 16 companies have already agreed to pay the new rates, which supersede the £80 rate agreed from March 1, and he estimated that around 40 to 45 companies could be hit if they do not meet the Union's demands.
While the RHA has said it does not recognise the legitimacy of the interim wage claims, and believes that many companies could close as a result of strike action, Mr Eggleston told CM that some companies will settle, because they cannot afford the price of strike action.