RHA votes to keep JICs
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• The Road Haulage Association's national council last week voted massively to stay in Joint Industrial Councils.
This represents a big "no" to the RHA executive board's wish to discontinue the JICs, but it will please the Transport and General Workers' Union.
The national council's 45 members voted overwhelmingly to defeat a resolution that the RHA should withdraw from JICs and from formal contact with the unions on wage negotiations.
But if has agreed to scrutinise the role of the JICs and to see if improvements are possible in the light of a "constantly changing industrial relations scene". Those improvements, if any at all, have not been specified, the RHA says.
If there were to be a change, it would have been the best time for the RHA to implement it. Wage claims normally start being discussed around October, for implementation in January.
The RHA executive board, which includes RHA director general Freddie Plaskett, national chairman Bert Neely from A. Neely, and vicechairmen Glyn Samuel and Roy Bowles had just completed a review of the use of JICs.
It wanted to discontinue JICs as it believed that some members could get a better wage deal outside of the J1C. It also argued that many members are not covered by collective agreements.
In the north of England there are only agreements in Merseyside, West and South Yorkshire and West Cumbria. There is also no agreement in South Wales.