Towards angry deadlock on wages?
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by our industrial correspondent
• There may be angry strike demands from Britain's 200,000 lorry drivers if their claim for E1-a-week all-round rises is rejected by the Road Haulage Wages Council next week. A deadlock seems inevitable at Tuesday's meeting. For the Prices and Incomes Board has ruled: "Any increase in pay which is not confined to those who earn little more than the statutory minimum wage rates will be wholly unacceptable......
The employers propose to put forward a formula based on the PIB findings. This will recommend a guaranteed "fall back" rate of earnings based on 45 hours work. It would bring low-paid drivers outside London up to a regular income of £13 10s 5d to £15 4s 4d for the new 40-hour week. Some 9 per cent of drivers work less than 45 hours: but only 4.5 per cent would get rises. The others already earn above the new guaranteed level. The claim for an all-round increase was first submitted to the Wages Council in August 1967. It was rejected: but resubmitted for consideration on December 14, when a long meeting of the Council ended in deadlock. Talks have virtually broken down. Three independent members of the Wages Council are expected to back the employers' offer. But the unions will oppose. It will probably go forward on a majority vote for a date to be fixed by Mr. Ray Gunter, Minister of Labour.
Mr. Gunter's go-ahead for the 40-hour week from February 28 has done little to ease the discontent of drivers over their recent Wages Council claims. TGWU branches are pressing for action if the all-round increase is finally rejected: it is almost certain that the unions will call an immediate meeting to consult on their next move
Mr. Ken Jackson, TGWU national secretary for commercial road transport, has warned that the union will be claiming a minimum of £16 for a 40-hour week "with the category structure according to the type of vehicle and responsibility built on to it". It seems certain that the lines of battle are being drawn in a similar way to the recent dispute over municipal bus workers.