BUILDING THE UNION IN THE ROAD FREIGHT SECTOR

16 RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: june 2010 :: RMTnews RMT’s road freight conference in Leeds called for an urgent meeting to be held with Freightliner to negotiate recognition rights within its subsidiary companies. Maurice Hamilton, Leeds Goods and Cartage, said that restructuring at Freightliner was undermining both wages and the union. “Each time Freightliner set up a company within a company they bring people in on lower wages for the same job and deny the union recognition,” he said. Peter Daniels, Leeds Goods and Cartage, said that Freightliner was only one example and that the wider road freight industry had been hit very hard over recent times. “Since we met last year our sector has been hit by more and more setbacks. We have problems at Freightliner, where we used to have good recognition,” he said. Senior assistant general secretary, Mick Cash, told conference that road freight had been the sector in the transport industry to face the greatest blows in the wake of the recession. This is in spite of the fact that Britain doesn’t have a large manufacturing base any longer and therefore imports and needs to distribute a huge quantity of goods by road. Cut throat competition has also led to companies fighting between each other, more than ever before, for business. “Companies like City Link have seen things change and have introduced strategies to reduce costs. Increasingly, they use agency staff. This is why it is so difficult to organise in this sector. They restructure and open and close depots. Part- time staff are brought in and union members are moved from one site to another. As a result, we have trade union members in some places without trade union organisation. “Fragmentation of the industry and cutthroat competition makes it difficult, but we intend to build in those locations and spread out. Road freight is fragmented but there are medium to large companies that offer opportunities for recruitment. We need more representatives to build the road freight sector.” he said. Building the union Conference unanimously agreed that the hard-hit sector needed to ensure that all road freight activists were encouraged to make every effort to attend the annual conference. Andrew Hill, Leeds Goods and Cartage, said that it was the duty of every representative and activist to be present. “The union should coordinate an exercise with the aim of producing an information pack to be sent to all representatives and activists covered by this conference. The pack should include recruitment material, the decisions of the previous year’s conference and explanation of the function of the conference,” he said. Peter Daniels told conference that he believed that there was an important job to be done in educating non union members about the nature of RMT being a specialist transport union. “RMT is more than a train union, we are a transport union and we need to get this over to everybody,” he said. Next year’s road freight conference will be held on Sat 16 April in Leeds. BUILDING THE UNION IN THE ROAD FREIGHT SECTOR RMT road freight conference calls for recognition throughout Freightliner