'More power to RHA secretaries
Page 45
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Patrick Prekopp
NEW YEAR prospects for the haulage 'industry are no less gloomy than those for the rest of the country. '
According to observers, the poor state of our national economy is partly a result of the breakdown in labour relations between unions and management. Even Harold Wilson has warned that 1976 will continue to be a battle against inflation unless workers stick to their jobs and settle problems "through the established negotiating or arbitration procedures."
And nowhere in the haulage industry has the conflict between an employers' association and a trade union been more acute than in the West Midlands.
So, in a timely New Year message of his own, former area secretary of the West Midlands RHA, Mr Jack Parnell, warns the Association : "Get yourselves organised." Otherwise, he fears, the power of the Road Haulage AssociatiOn could be undermined through complacency in its labour relations policy.
For in the past 15 years, Jack Parnell has lived through a power struggle between West Midlands hauliers and the TGWU which saw the emergence a few years ago of an employers' unofficial negotiating committee — the so-called assenting members' group—and a new cut-and-thrust policy by a previously moderate union. (Since Frank Cousins and Jack Jones became general secretaries of TGWU, the union's policy was changed, radically to the left.) During this period, when the battle for dominance over one of the largest RHA membership areas raged, Mr Parnell faced the 'charismatic/controversial Alan Law, regional trade group secretary of the TGWU.
Battle
It was, in fact, a battle on almost military lines : Jack Parnell is a former RAF Squadron Leader, Alan Law a former Regimental Sergeant Major.
Now retired, Mr Parnell, aged 65, looks back to those years as some of the toughest he had known. "Although there were frustrations, generally speaking I was able to carry out the job the way I wanted to," he told me recently.
Early on, he was successful in winning an unusual concession from Mr Law which no other area has been able to win. This allows an ownerdriver to cross picket lines during a dispute if he shows his RHA membership card instead of a union card.
Such 'agreements were hard won, and could be easily lost if the RHA is not careful, adds Mr Parnell. For although it is a non-negotiating body, the RHA must now be given more authority, and 'especially its area secretaries, if it is to represent its members effectively.
However, this would involve a complete reorganisation of areas, which Jack Parnell strongly urges RHA head office to consider. Instead of the present 15 areas, the size of which varies from about 350 members to just under 3,000, the country should be divided into not more than eight areas; each with 'a membership in the region of 1,750 to 2,500. These areas should be : Scotland, North East, North West, Midlands, Eastern, Metropolitan, Southern 'and South Western.
In comparison, the FTA already 'has only five areas : Midlands, Northern, Scottish, South Eastern and South Western. Additionally, Mr Parnell would like to see a governing body consisting of representatives from a wider range of branches of the industry as well as an equal number of elected representatives from each area.
Representation
"At the moment, larger 'areas get proportionally larger representation," said Mr Parnell. "Such a reorganisation would equalise areas and strengthen the hand of the RHA in labour relations, especially now that the burden of its licensing activities has been lifted.
"The RHA is principally an advisory body •and assists its members in law, contracts, safety, legal aid and so on. When it came to wage negotiations, •however, it had to turn a blind eye when a group of 11 members decided to negotiate, as a group, with the TGWU. Following a strike they managed to settle with Alan Law 'and, since then, the group of assenting members has grown to more than 100, who all hope to avoid future industrial trouble in this way.
"Although outside RHA policy, this appears to be the only way that some members — the richer ones — and the union can get together.
"The alternative would be to give the Association full negotiating powers which would probably solve the problems of some of he larger firms but increase those of the smaller ones, who may not employ union members, but who work on a friendly basis. You could say that this gives them an unfair advantage.
"Following on from this, if any agreement were reached by the RHA, and all members were made Ito comply, those who did not would resign. Some method of enforcing the agreement would therefore have to be introduced.
"For a start, all •operators would have to be RHA members. The Association would then have to have powers similar to the union so that, if any member did not comply, he would have Ito be put out of business by the RHA — in effeet, an RHA closed shop.
"I don't like that idea at all."
Advising
Jack Parnell joined the RHA while on leave from the RAF in 1945 as general organiser. In April 1960, he became area secretary for the West Midlands and remained so until he retired in September last year. For a long while he was mainly involved with advising operators on carriers' licensing. But this inevitably gave way to an increasingly important aspect of his role as adviser during the "wage war" of the late Sixties — the "Alan Law Era" as it came to be called in the Midlands.
It began, however, at Oldbury in 1961 with a strike. Although the unions finally accepted an agreement, the firm involved closed down.
As a result of this and similar strikes Jack Parnell was forced to establish some form of negotiating system with Alan Law. This, inadvertently, gave rise to the assenting members group, and any agreement reached by them was generally adopted by other operators — even outside the West Midlands, But Mr Parnell blames people like Alan Law for creating a situation where vehicles are left standing against the wall.
"Operators used to have spare vehicles, drivers, etc. But recently, they have cut down their fleets to a bare minimum, partly because labour costs keep going up. I'm sure Mr Law thought he was working in the best interests of his members. But no man can hold an employer to ransom in the way he has done.
"What I would have loved to have said to him when he threatened a strike was : 'All right! Bring them out on strike, but close down other businesses for that period and lay off your members without PaY."