ORGANISING ROAD FREIGHT WORKERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april/may 2014 :: RMTnews 14 The 82nd annual road freight conference meeting in Great Yarmouth opened with a minute’s applause in appreciation of the life of Bob Crow. Acting general secretary Mick Cash and assistant general secretary Steve Hedley both paid tribute to Bob. Mick Cash spoke of the difficult time the union after losing Bob Crow, a leader who was so well respected across the country and globally. “One of the things we are determined to do is to carry his work on and to keep on looking after members and putting bosses in their places. “It is business as usual, his legacy has ensured that there is a team in place to continue and maintain his work” said Mick. As road freight lead officer Steve Hedley warned that bosses may now think that this an opportunity to put the boot in. “However Bob put in place a fantastic team of people that now need to go ahead and organise,” he said. He said that conferences must become organising bodies and as an opportunity to plan which depots target. “City Link is an example where we have had a recognition agreement for 30 years but where we are not adequately recruiting and we need to campaign to increase pay so that they are no longer low paid. “Road freight transport is going to be a key player within our union and I want to see twice as many people here next year,” he said. He warned that both City Link and UPS were using the recession to drive down terms and conditions and make cuts, however; if we had 80 per cent of the workforce recruited rather than 20 per cent they would not be able to get away with this. “Despite the dire financial situation at City Link the union has managed to negotiate a pay rise. “So if anybody thought RMT were going to go away they were wrong; let’s start organising in these conferences and give our members a service they can be proud of,” he said. Conference president Trevor Howard outlined the problems facing the sector citing the fact that UPS was moving Unite reps into long standing RMT depots as a precursor to de-recognition and Freightliner facing a test case shortly over the working time directive the need for decisive action within this sector is ever more apparent. Trevor called for a campaign to increase road freight recruitment as “the road freight sector will vanish without new blood, you must go back to your branch and get them involved in recruitment,” he said. Delegates led a lively debate with questions about launching organising campaigns, if there should be a separate section of the union to deal with road freight issues and the on-going blight that is casualisation. Trevor Howard reported that he was in discussions with the organising unit about launching an organising campaign and how there should be more interest from the wider union to assist in the recruiting of their road freight brothers and sisters. He said that there needed to be a point of contact within all branches so that people in depots know they have someone to contact and that will help them. He also reiterated the need for members to attend branches so that they can become elected as reps. Speaking on behalf of the executive committee Paul McDonnell opened a discussion about reviewing the format of grade conferences and how they might become more effective and how any overlap on issues that were pertinent to more than one grade can be reduced. Delegates agreed a number of resolutions concerning the setting up of a national business council to support City Link, extending mandatory drug testing to sub-contractors, instigating a campaign to investigate the outsourcing of work to sub-contractors and the ending of the practice whereby drivers are expected to deliver goods that weigh in excess of 30kg single-handedly and for these to be returned to being a two-person job. ORGANISING ROAD FREIGHT WORKERS Road freight delegates pay tribute to Bob Crow and discuss organising the grade