Maxwell's on the road
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• National Carriers Contract Services is setting up a new joint distribution company with Robert Maxwell, head of the Mirror Group, to distribute copies of his forthcoming 24hour newspaper London Daily News. The paper is due to be launched on February 10 and will be targeted at southern England.
Though spokesmen for Maxwell and the National
Freight Consortium (National Carriers' parent company) would not give details on the talks, Commercial Motor understands that several hundred vehicles have already been ordered to carry out the work, that the new operation's union and labour force structures have already been discussed and that loading and unloading times have been settled, The joint company will probably be called Street Fleet.
Maxwell appears to have chosen the NFC's National Carriers operation because it uses a National Union of Railwaymen agreement — and not a Transport and General Workers' Union agreement. He will be hoping to avoid the picket line clashes his rival Rupert Murdoch has experienced at Wapping in East London with both the print unions and the TGWU. The railwaymen will also feel less aggrieved that another newspaper is going out by road rather than by rail if the trucking company concerned — National Carriers — is using NUR labour.
TNT, the haulage company which carries Rupert Mur [loch's News International titles, is continuining to battle with the print unions and the TGWU after almost a year in operation at Wapping.
CM understands that Maxwell wants to keep his printing times as late as possible, close to the 11prn deadline imposed by the train timetables on most Fleet Street newspapers.
As with the TNT operation, NCCS, the curtainsiders will probably be unloaded into vans reverse-parked down either side of the trailer.
Li The Transport and General Workers' Union is getting close to expelling members who have crossed News International picket lines during the dispute. Several cases are still going through the union's disciplinary machinery and up to six members could be dismissed from the union's northern region based at Newcastle-uponTyne.
The members have the right to appeal before the TGWU's national executive which was sitting all of last week. They may also have recourse to a further, final appeals committee before being expelled.