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E3 offer thaws North-east freeze

7th February 1981
Page 5
Page 5, 7th February 1981 — E3 offer thaws North-east freeze
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Keywords : Workers' Union, Labor

HERE has been a breakthrough in wage negotiations in North-east ngland, with Teesside employers offering a 0-a-week increase to lass 1 drivers, but there is still a dispute over when the new scale f pay should start.

At a meeting last week, the mployers' negotiators offered n £80 basic rate for top-weight rivers, payable from February , but they said they doubted if heir members would be repared to backdate the agreeent to January 1, the anniverary date for the Teesside agreeant.

They added that many emloyers would welcome a drivrs' strike as a cheap method of shedding labour, but Transport and General Workers Union organiser John Yates told CM this week: "There is no way we would go on strike. We're not that daft."

He said that if the employers are prepared to backdate the offer when he meets them again on Monday, he will sign an agreement without reference to his membership. But, if not, Teesside hauliers will be blacked by Union members throughout the country — especially in Scotland — and they will be unable to get backloads, he claimed.

The move on Teesside seems also to have broken the ice in the rest of the Northern area, as Road Haulage Association area secretary Denis Le Conte has told the unions that the employers have "a mandate to start the ball rolling".

But TGWU negotiator Geoff Eggleston, who was due to accompany officials of the General and Municipal Workers Union and the United Road Transport Union at talks on Thursday this week, said he didn't expect drivers to accept any "funny business" from the employers, meaning an offer which is not backdated.

In the West Midlands, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, which played a part in establishing the Joint Industrial Council for the area, has called both sides together to try to break the deadlock there.

This follows a meeting last weekend at which the TGWU 5/35 branch in Birmingham voted to say that if the RHA does not meet its claim for an £83.15 top rate, with the £1.50 regional supplement coming down to £1, and being phased out over the next few years, it will resort to selective company negotiations, backed up, where necessary, with appropriate industrial action.

The 5/35 motion was expected to be passed at a TGWU regional delegate meeting yesterday (Friday).

Talks continue next week in North Wales, where TGWU negotiators last week submitted a 9.2 per cent claim to increase the £76 top rate basic pay from February 1. They also want subsistence raised by 50p to £9.50, a 50p meal allowance introduced, and £150 personal insurance.


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