TGWU fights for stewards
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• The Transport and General Workers Union is set to take Rank Hovis to an industrial tribunal for cutting shop stewards' jobs, along with other drivers, as the company contracts out part of its distribution.
The TGWU believes three shop stewards, who are among 16 drivers sacked from Rank's Solent Mills, Southampton plant, have been targeted because of their union involvement.
The Rank Hovis McDougall subsidiary refuses to comment. It is believed it will keep its 18 inhouse drivers to handle bulk work and that it will contract its bag deliveries to Wincanton Distribution as well as spot hiring hauliers.
The TGWU claims Rank's subcontracting of the work has undermined in-house drivers' loyalty. "In May last year the drivers were asked to accept a substantial pay decrease so that work could be kept in-house," says TGWU branch official Jennie Sandie. "That agreement was to last until February next year, but it was obviously worth nothing."
The union, still in talks with Rank on redundancy terms, says it may use the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations to save the drivers' jobs.