PROFILE LADY TRUCKERS CLUB Back in the mid-1980s Ilona Richards
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founded the Lady Truckers' Club to offer moral and practical support to the tiny band of women HGV drivers. Recently, the club has been struggling to survive and membership has declined. Does it still have a future, or are women's interests in the transport sector more ably looked after by other organisations, such as trade unions? Mike Sherrington investigates.
Q, uite a few of us have probably been in this position where you have a great idea, work hard to develop it and when you think you've cracked it, let go of the reins a bit only to find it's not quite as successful as it was before.
This is what appears to have happened to the Lady Trucker's Club, founded 12 years ago by Ilona Richards who ran the club almost single-handed up until about five years ago.Then it was decided to set up a committee to ease the burden on Richards and things started to go slightly downhill.
Membership has declined from a peak of about 170 to 120, there are wrangles about the content of the club's newsletter and there have been suggestions that the club might close.
However, for the majority of women drivers who are aware of it, the club still has an important role to play and there are quite a few who would fight tooth and nail to keep it open.
The club started when Ilona Richards met another woman HGV driver at a motorway service station and agreed to swap letters, met a couple more and did the same, and then it just "grew and grew", says Richards. The club now helps women get an HGV licence by advising on the right training establishment because, as Richards says: "You have to find the right school, not all of them are reputable". It then offers women advice on how to get a job. Despite the current driver shortage this is not always easy "There is still quite a lot of sexism out there, although it is not as bad as it was, and now the larger firms, are taking a much more sympathetic attitude to women drivers," says Richards. The main thing women lack is confidence but on the whole I think women truck drivers are better than most men. This is because it's so hard for a woman to become a driver that she really must want to do it For a lot of men it is just a job," she adds.
The club also offers important networking arrangements. Registration secretary Pauline Morgan explains: "For a lot of male drivers it is very easy to go down the pub and have a whinge with their mates after work. For women it is different, quite often they have a family to look after as well and their husbands tend not to be interested in their work problems so sometimes it is very beneficial to have a fellow woman driver they can ring up and talk to."
Quite a few truckstops still do not have separate showers for women and the networking arrangement extends so that women working away from home can ring up another member of the club arrange to have a shower, meet for a drink or in some cases even stay the night" she add&
The club also operates an advice line. Ilona Richards explains: "There is no job in trucking that a woman cannot do but there are some specialist loads which they might not know how to deal with. If a member rings me up I can usually put them in touch with a woman who has carried something similar and who can offer advice."
Despite being able to provide all these benefits to women drivers, the Lady Truckers Club is in the doldrums. The question is why?
It is certainly not because the trade unions are stepping in to fill the breach. The TGWU at best has an ambivalent attitude to women drivers. "Of course we offer the same protection to women as we offer to our men members but truck driving, with the possible exception of the docks, is the most male-dominated sector of industry we deal with. Lady drivers are a real rarity and I have not heard of any problems concerning women drivers," says a T&G spokesman.
More supportive is the United Road Transport Union which has previously shared stand space with the Lady Truckers at various shows. "We have quite a few women driver members and at one time it was even suggested that we absorbed the Lady Trucker's Club and set up a special woman's section but to do this would be to admit that women have different problems to the rest of us which to a large extent they do not," says Douglas Curtis.
"We have dealt with a few problems of harassment but these have mainly been resolved before the courts got involved and I genuinely believe that sexism is declining," he adds.
Curtis sees the union complementing the LTC rather than acting instead of it. The problems seem to stem from inside the club. Owner-driver Julia Lennon, a friend of Ilona Richards, says: "I was one of the first members, as my membership number 039 shows, but I will not be renewing my membership this year. Quite frankly, I feel the club is increasingly run by people who do not drive day to day and it is becoming increasingly irrelevant to those who do. On top of that
the newsletter has become crap. It is full of reminiscences from drivers and does not contain the news I want, like where the good truckstops are."
However, for every detractor there are those who strongly support the club. Typical of these is Paddy Labon, very much the doyenne of the club. Labon did not get an HGV licence until she was 52, after 30 years working as a market trader had been wrecked by the Edwina Curry-inspired scare over salmonella in eggs.
She is still driving today at 61, despite recently being off for 10 weeks with a broken wrist, and says: "I enjoy being a member and fear that if the club shut down, even temporarily, it would never get going again and this would be a real tragedy for women drivers. I might go for a whole week without seeing another woman on the road but then the next week !might see two or three—but generally [feel the number of
women drivers is increasing with new blood, especially farmer's daughters, coming into the industry" The Lady Truckers Club still has a lot to offer these people, she adds.
The increasing number of women drivers could well prove the salvation for the club but it has to be remembered that the increase is from a very low base. The 1994 Commercial Motor survey of women in the industry shows that less than 0.5% of all drivers were women.
As for the future, Ilona Richards admits that there are some problems with the club: "We are taking steps to improve the newsletter but the other problem is that our membership is so widely dispersed geographically and, with a lot of women also having to take on child-care duties, it is difficult for them to come to meetings," she says.
There is a degree of quiet determination about Richards which makes you believe that the club will have a sound future. This is despite the fact that she admits she is under pressure from her partner to ease off or give up altogether. However, having spoken to Ilona Richards the idea that a mere man could make her pack it in is unthinkable.
Joining the club
*Membership of the LTC costs £7 a year and there are two categories: Full membership for those who have an HGV or LGV licence, and associate membership for those interested in driving. For more details contact Ilona Richards at 1 Horton Avenue, Streiton, Burton upon Trent, Staffs DE13 ODP.