HOURS NOT TO REASON . .
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• Britain's road transport unions, meeting in Florence this week, pledged themselves to winning a 35-hour week for lorry drivers by 1994. Everyone is aware of how stressful modern driving can be, and any move to make a driver's life safer and more comfortable is to be welcomed. But who ends up paying?
The hauliers who employ the driver, that's who. They still have to pay the same wage and provide the same service to the customer. And what, as the RHA rightly points out, happens to the unwritten five hours overtime agreement, paid at time-anda-half on top of the driver's regular 40 hours? If drivers continued to work 45 hours, hauliers would have to stump up another 15 hours wages for each employee. Do the unions think operators have bottomless pockets?