WHITHER FRANK COUSINS?
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BY JOHN DARKER, AMBIN1 MR. FRANK COUSINS, no longer an MP, has about three more years to serve the TGWU. Freed from parliamentary
chores he is now able to devote his consider able energies to the leadership of that vast amalgam in which transport workers exercise an influential though minority role.
Many people would argue that Frank Cousins' national influence slumped dis astrously when he resigned from the Government; one would not have to look far to find transport managers and operators who would have been very happy if Mr.
Cousins had continued to minister to the nation's technology. But if his influence on the national scene has been diminished by his abdication of ministerial power his influence on the politics of transport will be correspondingly enhanced.
Ex-lorry driver Frank Cousins has made no secret of his earnest desire to increase the status of road transport workers. Trans port managers should not ignore the impact likely to be made by the campaign launched by the union to secure a £15 a week minimum wage for all workers. For this figure is a floor, not a ceiling. It will be exclusive of overtime, shill payments, productivity bonuses, piecework and so on, and Mr. Cousins has stressed that if any employer says he cannot afford this the union's answer will be that he can and must afford it, and any necessary reorganization must be accomplished.
Illustrating the low-wages argument the TGWU Record quotes figures of total
earnings in 1965 (including overtime). These show that 32.3 per cent of all transport workers earned less than £15 per week.
Working hours in road transport are exercising the Minister of Transport. We may be quite certain that the TGWU's weight will be on the side of those who would reduce the maximum legal working hours; and annual holidays in line with those obtaining in many European countries will be pressed for strongly.
Revolutionary retraining methods are also foreshadowed by Mr. Cousins and he concedes that more industrial mobility is necessary.
The main impact of the TGWU's campaign will fall on the individual firm. Mr.
Cousins would like to scrap Wages Councils (including, presumably, the RHWC) because he wants his best officers to work closely with shop stewards on local productivity bargaining. He does not regret this, now well established, emphasis on local negotiations, but he insists that managements must give much more information to employees.
He demands that workers be told the state of order books, investment plans, purchasing and pricing policies, unit costs, and manpower changes and remuneration. "The secrecy of private enterprise about its industrial intentions is one of the most harmful of today's restrictive practices", he insists.
The TGWU envisages a joint initiative by the TUC and the CBI towards centralized bargaining on minimum wages and con ditions with periodical adjustments related to the cost of living. "This approach in no way implies the acceptance of wage restraint, but would provide a greater degree of unification of minimum conditions and rationalize the national negotiating process by ending the annual wages scramble where one industry after another goes into separate negotiations on matters, such as the Cost of living, that are common to all workers."
The union would accept advice and information from the Department of Economic Affairs and from the National Economic Development Council (the Prices and Incomes Board is still, it seems, anathema!) but direct Government participation is not sought.
It may not have been purely fortuitous that Mr. Aubrey Jones dubbed some British trade unions with the uncomplimentary "fuedal baron" tag in a TV confrontation with Mr. Cousins. Any voluntary surrender of sovereignty by the elephantine TGWU, which now concedes "the movement is ready to take this step forward, together with other reforms", is something to shout about.
Another useful idea is that regional teams of arbitrators should be set up by the Ministry of Labour to dispense "instant justice" locally. But one should not cheer too loudly at this prospect; both parties, it is made clear, would have to agree to call in the Ministry's trouble-shooters. And abide by their edicts.
All this, you may think, will keep Frank Cousins busy until he retires in three years' time. But is he wasting his talents on these, perhaps, run-of-the-mill union chores? Obviously the TGWU's activities are important, not least in the sphere of road transport, but how relevant are they in the context of transport problems generally?
Having charted the course, I suggest, Mr. Cousins could usefully allow his able lieutenants to drive the union bus, until his retirement. Freed from this burden he could devote his energies to the wider problems of transport.
The conflicting policies of the unions concerned with road transport are known only too well to Mrs. Castle whose unenviable task is to try, behind the scenes, to reconcile the irreconcilable. Frank Cousins would be well qualified to voice these different approaches publicly in the light of his views on general transport policy.
Rapidly changing techniques in transport are revolutionizing distribution systems on an international scale. Are the unions with a transport membership in tune with the technical demands of the sixties and seventies?
Union attitudes to liner trains, one-man buses, vehicle scheduling, maximum speeds, dock mechanization, and so on, are well known. If less has been heard of their views on the national freight organization or on the current talks between the RHA, THC and BR, past form suggests that inter-union bickering will continue to brake progress. What of Europe? Mr. Cousins took the Gaitskell line opposing Britain's entry into the Common Market some years ago; he has recently joined a top-level committee of industrial leaders who are advising the Government on the problems arising from our entry to EEC.
Delegations from the TGWU pay frequent visits to iron curtain countries. Transport depots in Hungary were visited by Mr. Jack Jones and other union bigwigs a month or two ago. Frank Cousins himself visited Russia as Minister of Technology; he can hardly have failed to observe some interesting transport developments there.
If Mr. Cousins dedicated his career from now on to focusing public opinion here, and on the Continent, on the implications to organized labour of the transport revolution, he would, I suggest, serve not only the public interest but also the long-term interests of the TGWU.