Pay: TGWU rethink
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The TGWU's road transport commercial group has circulated proposals for a two-tier wage structure, with a national committee agreeing a minimum basic rate of pay, basic working week, overtime premiums, holiday entitlement, and overnight subsistence.
Group secretary Jack Ashwell, who was not available for comment this week, has told union members: "This is not the first step towards dismantling the area negotiating machinery."
The area Joint Industrial Councils and other committees would continue to exist to negotiate improvements upon the levels agreed nationally.
These proposals, which are being circulated to members for discussion, and which will be considered at the next national meeting in April, follow disquiet from areas like North East England which felt that they had been let down by negotiators in other areas who, in their view, caved in early and accepted settlements well short of the £100 target for a 35-hour week.
Mr Ashwell told the group's newspaper that hauliers have operated a policy of reaching settlements in the "weaker" areas, and have then tried to apply these throughout the country.
But this is a charge refuted by Road Haulage Association industrial relations officer Doug Taylor, who told CM that no uniform rate is agreed nationally by the employers, and said there is no obligation upon employers to settle at any level.
He said that it would be a matter for the RHA national council and its industrial relations committee to discuss the implications of changes made by the union, but said it was "a bit galling" that the union had not informed the RHA of its proposals.
Mr Taylor said the employers would be prepared to listen to the union's proposals, once they are formulated, but said they would not necessarily accept them in their entirety. But he warned that they would be very unhappy with any regime in which nationally agreed rates bore little relation to those arrived at by regional negotiators.
In the meantime, Southern negotiators have agreed an £86 top rate for 40 hours, with £10 subsistence, time and a third night rate, and improvements in welfare benefits. They also have agreed to pursue bonus agreements in Southampton at company level.
Employers in the Eastern area have made an improved offer above the £84 rate rejected last year by the TGWU, but there have been no further moves in North Wales, the only other area which has still to settle this winter.