UNION LOYALTY?
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III Your article on drivers' wages gave a distorted view of our industry's relations with the drivers. Your quote, 'almost two-thirds of 4,927 drivers covered belong to a union," makes your figures about 3,200 (almost 3,284; you say 80% belong to the TGW (that's 2,627) and 7.63% belong to the United Road Transport (that's 244). The remaining 1,727 drivers have been negotiating their own wages.
Today's driver is more educated than his counterparts were years ago. Most know how much the job is worth, they know the price of trucks, parts, tyres etc. They realise that if the job is not paying they will be out.
In the UKTA survey at Truckfest last year, 75% of drivers said they were only in a union because they had to be, or it went with the job; that is 3,695 by your figures and only 6%, which is 296 drivers, said they would support the union. Staying with figures, 84% think unions have not done enough for our industry, it makes you wonder what the unions have been doing for the last 30-odd years.
R J Morris, United Kingdom Truckers Association,
Our wages survey included a question on union membership — not on drivers' attitudes to unions. We plan a feature in the new year on attitudes to unions. Meanwhile, we maintain that our article did not distort the survey results. Editor.