Drivers press for more subsistence
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TRANSPORT workers' leader Mr Jack Jones has written to Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Denis Healey in an effort to get the tax-free drivers' subsistence payment level raised.
In his letter, Mr Jones told the Chancellor that the concession had always been pitched at a very low level. "Even now at the figure of £4.50 it is felt that this is far too low to take into account the realities of the present day," said Mr Jones.
He said that the drivers might do better if they were represented by accountants. "Even Civil servants, it is understood, enjoy a very high tax-free allowance from the State," said Mr Jones.
Chicks die
The letter followed a week in which ports had been paralysed by lorry drivers striking over the subsistence issue. Reports have come in of lorryloads of day-old chicks dying on the trucks and ships lying idle while drivers refused to cross picket lines.
At Avonmouth the drivers' four-day strike stopped port work. One employer told CM that the drivers began by being badly organised, but on the second day of the strike the men had banded together to take action.