Compromise or that wages time-bomb really will go off!
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IF THE 1979 haulage drivers' strike and periodical skirmishes among oil tanker drivers have done nothing else, they have alerted the nation to lorry drivers' industrial muscle. They may not be in the same bracket as coalminers or power-station workers, but they have been elevated to a position where they are a force to be reckoned with, writes ALAN MILLAR.
It was perhaps that fear of industrial action, or maybe just battle weariness, which helped trades union officers and hauliers to hasten last winter's pay negotiations to a peaceful conclusion.
There may have been plenty of table-thumping to the contrary at the Road Haulage Association's Brighton conference, but wage increases of around 20 per cent were conceded all round, talk of enforcing productivity deals vanished down the drain, and operators were forced to look for higher rates from their customers.
Things are very different this year. Britain is in recession, and with industry battening down its hatches, any significant increase in haulage rates will make companies think again about transport. Already, haulage is feeling the pinch badly, and there is a deafening cry of poverty to be heard in haulage yards.
The RHA has been issuing warnings for most of this year, the latest being national chairman Ken. Rogers' ninepoint survival plan (CM, August 23) which underlined the cash flow surgery which operators must apply_
And in a rider, Mr Rogers' words of wages wisdom are: 'The principal cost to hauliers is drivers' wages and the level of the settlement in the forthcoming negotiations will be crucial in deciding the future of many haulage businesses. Here, too, members must take individual action to ensure that their own drivers are fully aware of the state of their own companies and of the level of wages which the company can afford.
"The drivers' understanding of all the circumstances is essential if they are to have any influence on the future wage negotiations Publicly, RHA says that even one per cent is one per cent more than its members can afford, and that realism must apply.
None of this impresses the Transport and General Workers' Union. Commercial group secretary Jack Ashwell points to 17 per cent inflation figures, and days his members are being faced by increases in most essentials, and singles out phone charges which are necessary when regular work takes drivers hundreds of miles away from home. The RHA, too, has been complaining about phone bills.
The Union's tack this year is to try to squeeze the most it can from difficult times. While last year it set an £80 basic rate as a goal, and made noises about cash for accepting the tachograph, this year it is less specific. It wants rises "at least in line with the rise in the retail price indexand the tachograph is not an issue. Money is.
By trying to start the pay round in September, rather than October, TGWU is boxing clever. It hopes one area will be persuaded or trapped into settling early before there is a big drop in RPI. If one area concedes, say, 16 per cent, then it might be hard for the others to follow suit.
That would be similar to last year's round when the Leeds and Bradford Employers' Federation agreed to a £76 basic rate when the other negotiating groups were pledged to something lower, and with productivity strings attached, Its members were verbally hanged, drawn, and quartered at Brighton, but by then the rogue elephant was leading the others into the ring, and the state of play was decided.
And this year only a fool would believe that the employers' -no money" cry will be their final position. It might be realistic to say that an operator who is running on a shoestring and who is being pressurised by his customers cannot afford another penny on wages, but it is not a realistic way of preserving drivers' goodwill. They must, and will, be offered something.
What that will be is another matter. RHA Scottish area secretary Tom Brattin, who presides over one of the more militant corners of the realm, says it must be in single figures if jobs are not going to be lost. And Denis Le Conte, his counterpart in North-east England says: -It would be unfair to single out drivers and give them nothing.
He fears that refusals to pay any increase would lead to drivers seeking a larger than ever rise in 1981. It would be better to reach a compromise this year than have a time bomb ticking away under everyone's seat. He also feels that higher wages may, in fact, help operators, as some members have been unable to fill vacancies because of the relative attraction of some social security benefits.
The National Freight Company, as the state-controlled sector will be called when pay talks begin, is also an RHA member, but negotiates separately. Talks there could be coloured, if only slightly, by that undertaking's impending sale to private enterprise. Management will want to maintain its tight rein on expenditure, but Jack Ashwell is equally determined that NFC's changes should not hurt his membe,rs.
"Up to 1974, NFC always led on wage negotiations. There is no possibility of this being eroded. NFC's new owners must realise that they will be faced by a united attitude of unions," he says. A trial of strength, perhaps, when the wage claim there is lodged in September?
All this suggests that a bigger than ever gulf may open up between haulage drivers and the elite tanker men. Already, oil companies pay basic rates of £92 against £76 to £78 paid by general hauliers, and Mobil has already agreed a £105 basic rate which Jack Ashwell regards more as a launching pad than a target.
Few doubt that the oil companies can afford big wage rises, and the Confederation of British Industry has warned them that they ought to spare a thought for the harder pressed employers and pay less than the rate on API. TGWU says that is not on.
It must also feel encouraged by the Government's decision to back off a fight with the coalminers this coming winter. Much of their 35 per cent claim could well be met: power-station workers are likely to see a precedent in that, and so too may the tankermen. They want a rise in line with inflation, if not in excess of it, and they may well get it.
That leaves the hauliers back in a position where, if reason is to prevail, it must prevail across the whole spectrum, and not just on wage bills. If the going rate for oil men goes through the roof, other own-account companies may pursue similai paths, and attract hauliers' best drivers.
That, and the certainty thai the Government will not be there to pick up the pieces of a r industry which tears itself apari through bitter wage conflict, ought to keep the fight withir sensible bounds. Realisrr should prevail.