When it comes to !Qs drivers are ahead
Page 18
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ADVISING Transport and General Workers' Union members not to buy shares in the National Freight Co, The Highways says: "Day-to-day decisions on the company operations will continue to be taken by the appropriate level of management in accordance with the policies of the board."
Democracy, however, demands that each NFC branch shop steward should call a mass meeting of the workers every morning — but not too early — to decide the day's programme, if any. The manager, released from his locked office, might then be told that the staff had decided to have the day off.
The Highway continues: "None of the slick presentation being made to encourage workers to take shares can disguise the fact that any money invested by the workers is risk capital."
Money invested by the Government in dubious nationalised enterprises is not, of course, risk capital. It is money straight down the drain, to which union members happily contribute in taxation with no hope of return.
Investment in football pools, horse and dog racing and other forms of gambling carries an element of risk, although rather less for the bookmaker than the punter, but I have yet to hear the TGWU advise members against million-to-one games of chance on which they have no influence.
Fortunately, many NFC drivers are far more intelligent than their union leaders and show a strong inclination to put their money where their jobs are.