NEW R.H.A. PAY AND CONDITIONS PLAN FOR HAULAGE?
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BY H. BRIAN COTTEE THE belief that an ,,all-embracing "new deal" plan for pay and conditions
will form part of imminent proposals by the Road Haulage Association for major changes in the haulage industry's structure: this, I understand, is the main reason why a strike threat by the Scottish Horse and Motormen's Association has been suspended until March 21. The S.H.M.A. had originally given notice that, because of the lack of response to its attempts to get Scottish hauliers or the RI:1.A, to meet the union and agree to a minimum overtime pay rate of time and a half, a series of guerrilla strikes was to start on February 1—last Saturday.
The S.H.M.A. secretary, Mr. Alex Kitson, told me this week that he was asked to meet " a deputation from a subcommittee" at the R.H.A. offices in Glasgow to discuss the overtime claim and associated matters; this he did on January 27, when he was told that the members he was meeting were not speaking officially for the R.H.A., but represented the hauliers chiefly concerned. It was after this, I understand, that he was assured that a special R.H.A. study group was nearing the end of its task of drawing up sweeping proposals for a new structure for the industry and, in view of this, he was asked to withdraw the strike threat.
No specific assurance was given that overtime rates would be dealt with in the new proposals, but the S.H.M.A. executive agreed to recommend that its members suspend strike action. If nothing satisfactory to the union emerges from the R.H.A. before March 21 the strike threat to 176 Scottish hauliers is likely to be implemented.
This news appears to put fresh signifi cance into the remarks made by Mr. G. Newman, R.H.A. secretary-general, to the Institute of Transport this week, when he suggested that it would greatly increase the stability of the haulage industry " if we could devise and operate in lieu of our present Wages Council system some comprehensive national machinery to deal with all questions concerning relations between employers arid employees, including the settlement of nationally applicable wages...." (see p. 55).