United front to sell the industry
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Steve Geary report e business sessions at e Tipper Conferen(
DELEGATES to the Road Haulage Association's 13th innual Tipping Convention Nero told time and again by speakers that hauliers must 3resent a united front and sell :heir industry to the public if hey wished to avoid more mpressive regulation.
Tory transport group vice;hairman Peter Fry admitted :hat heavy vehicles and their Dies were not an issue that soliticians would be happy to aise in the current General Election campaign and he irged operators to get out Ind sell their cause.
Solicitor Jonathan Lawton idded that hauliers must go out and explain their point of view if they were to counter he growing numbers of iressure groups campaigning in an environmentalist platorm and former transport ninister Peter Walker expre;sod his disappointment at he lack of an outcry from the ndustry when the roads ludget was slashed.
ONATHAN LAWTON, a solicior with 80 per cent of his busiless involving transport, told iperators that they were probbly the most unloved and unwanted section of the cornnunity.
He said that in the current ieneral election campaign, if a andidate was to promise to ontrol heavy vehicles and their [se even more heavily, then he [ad automatically won the supion of 50 per cent of the elecorate.
Mr Lawton said that the Fos
Report on Operators' licening brought planning matters ) the door of the LA's court and le planning officers had -an ndiluted hostility to haulage".
But no-one had come up with suitable alternative to road aulage ' so you must persuade le community to allow you to ontinue your business," said lr Lawton.
And he launched an attack on both the RHA and Freight Transport Association, both of whom, he said, had failed to communicate with the public to implant the idea that the heavy goods vehicle industry is a responsible business. "The average man in the street will have no knowledge of RHA members and scant knowledge of Foster.
Mr Lawton warned that hostility to the industry would continue and increase unless the industry went over to the attack and if it failed to attack, it would find itself in a worse situation.
To take planning matters into the LA's court was nearly impossible, he said.
And he accused the industry of failing to react even in individual cases when a haulier should speak out. He cited the cases of vehicles overloaded by customers. The customer should be prosecuted for the overloading offence, too, but the haulier does nothing because he is afraid of losing the traffic.
"You allow those acting against the industry to make the maximum capital out of overloading,he said. "Does anyone explain the haulage point of view — there is just no voice, unlike the Continental hauliers who try to sell a degree of professionalism.
"Here there is no reaction and no voice — you should apply far greater thought to selling the industry because when you are being prosecuted and the Foster Report is imposed, it will be too late," said Mr Lawton.
He added that people needed reminding that the responsibility for building adequate roads for the haulier rested with the highway authorities. -The community needs to be served by commercial vehicles, and no-one will point that out."
The industry needed to have a "due diligence" clause added to all legislation affecting it, otherwise the haulier would be prosecuted for offences over which he had no control, said Mr Lawton, and he gave the example of the haulier prosecuted for failing to cause records to be kept by a driver who was hundreds of miles away at the time.
Conference chairman Dr Clive Carefoot told Mr Lawton that the RHA had tried to get the due diligence clause inserted in legislation before, but previous ministers had told the industry that this was not something that would win votes.
Barry Hempsall told Mr Lawton that the problem was to persuade -the incompetents in Governmentto recognise the importance of the lorry and to build adequate roads so that the lorry became less of an environmental nuisance.
But he was told by Mr Lawton. "You never collectively demonstrate your awareness — get together and demonstrate because government is the will of the strongest."
You must try to persuade the electorate not only the individual MP, he said.
Yorkshire LA Maj-Gen John Carpenter told the conference that he had "grave doubts" on the environmental chapters of the Foster Report and he added that the LAs have told the Department of Transport that they do not like the report.
"I don't believe that we can escape from the tightness of environmental standards, and it is unfortunate that people notice what goes wrong in an industry and they will damn the whole industry on the basis of one vehicle — they don't notice properly conducted a maintained vehicle.
"Drivers worry me," he -the bad image comes from vers; there are many excell drivers but there is a srr number who will kill someoni lose their licences — I am tak more interest in drivers," s Maj-Gen Carpenter.
RHA DIRECTOR-gene George Newman admit1 that the Association Ii accepted the £64 settlem of the drivers' strike agri by a Bristol arbitration tril nal to "save the face of 1 Association" when he spc to the Tipper Convention.
And he outlined a new fc point policy that the RHA will following on industrial relatio which would mean a new na nal voluntary negotiation bo If that fails, the present a bodies would be retained w out national settlements be imposed.
continued overt
He also wants the chairmen of the employers negotiating committees to meet as often as necessary to decide how much the industry can afford to pay.
The Labour Relations Committee of the RHA is to be transformed into an industrial relations committee with the area negotiating committee chairmen co-opted.
He told the convention that the February settlement was made "as a face-saver — the RHA was cracking, there were very, very serious large cracks appearing in the cover," he said.
And Mr Newman slammed employment protection legislation as "enshrining the arrogant power of the unions, but to remove them would be political dynamite — remember the tragedy of the Heath Government."' He added that he hoped "common sense will prevail and I hope that the public will support a new Government's endeavour to change the gross imbalance of power."'
Mr Newman added that there had been only three alternatives for the RHA in industrial relations. The Association had been under pressure from some members to keep out of negotiations altogether because they would get more brickbats than cheers; they could allow the unions "to pick offcompanies and he revealed a threat to field 420 Transport and General Workers Union officials to do that.
The only alternative was to do as they had done and settle major points at national levels and leave the details to the local level.
FORMER Environment Secretary and Shadow Transport Minister Peter Walker pledged operators that a Conservative Government would create a climate more conducive to the smaller business.
And he added that the Tories would create an atmosphere for action on trade union relations. He called.for the secret and total ballot to be a part of trade union affairs.
'It is incredible that a man should be elected to the biggest job in trade unions in Britain by a minority for the rest of his working life — it is only fair that they should elect officers every five years,said Mr Walker.
He condemned secondary picketing as -a dangerous and insidious principle-. Picketing would be allowed only by those workers at the place being picketed and that would be a firm involved in a dispute — and the pickets would be in limited numbers.
He was disappointed that the postponement of the road programme that should have been completed by 1982 had not .raised an outcry.
This programme would have provided a network of motorways linking every major town to every major port. "This was sound economic sense and sound environmental sense,he said.
Now the country would be lucky if the programme was complete by 1992.
Mr Walker said that the country should realise that every rail journey carrying freight needed two lorry journeys and as stations were in the centres of towns, the railways brought heavy vehicles into town 'centres.
This, along with the state of British roads, was something that had to be pointed out to the British public, said Mr Walker, and he warned that the public does not know how bad the state of the British economy is.
He revealed that Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey had borrowed more money than all other chancellors put together and this had to be paid for.
PRICES and discounts formed the majority of the discussion in the manufacturers' forum part of the conference, where a massive panel of representatives of makers of vehicles, trailers and components faced the operators.
Hauliers wanted the makers to justify price increases that ranged up to more than 200 per cent in seven years — a rate more than double that of inflation.
But MAN-VW sales director John Jackson told operators that prices of many items were controlled from outside the country, the dropping pound had sent prices soaring — and many parts contained materials
imported from other countries even if the part was made here.
Manufacturers revealed that they actually made losses between price increases.
Questions on scrubbing of the rear tyres on an eight-wheel vehicle were answered with the news that Mack is to introduce a new self-steering rear bogie with two torque rods to allow wheels to spread on cornering and eliminate scrub by deflecting the wheels by up to four inches.
Foden's Bill Johnson commented that rubber suspension would help but the makers were fighting legislation on weights and dimensions which was stopping more sophisticated systems.
Rises in vehicle costs were blamed to a large degree on changes in legislation which have caused large increases in costs to the makers — and in a market with 2,500 registrations last year and hard competition, makers were finding it hard to find cash for research and development.
Increases in parts prices were blamed by Felix Finch of Seddon Atkinson on the increasing demands being made on the parts themselves by the operators which meant that they needed to be stronger and this pushed up prices.
A suggestion from forum chairman Jack Male that operators should be allowed to test prototype vehicles in operation was greeted with the news that some makers are doing just that while others find that operators do not cover the required mileage quickly enough.
And he warned the makers that if the prices kept on rising at the present rates, operators would not be able to fund the replacement of their fleets.
Mr Johnson of Fodens revealed that many of the makers are looking at ways of controlling the airflow underneath
vehicles to help them achieve more and more fuel economy, as well as constant wind tunnel testing to achieve a better aerodynamic shape for the vehicles.
A question from ZF Gears on whether the industry wanted automatic gearboxes or not was left open by delegates, who gave no real answer to the question — but other makers said that they thought the auto boxes would only have advantages for motorway running at present.
DUTCH haulage co-operative managing director JAN DE GREEF told the convention that up to 60 per cent of Dutch hauliers are operating with the expectancy the' they will make an operating loss or only a very marginal profit.
He revealed that the Dutch industry has an excess capacity of 130,000 tons for tippers and had a highly seasonal basis. with the slack only being taker up during the summer months.
Now the Dutch Governmeni had decided to halt further ex. pansion of the industry and iE not granting any new operatinc licences, which has given rise tc a flourishing business ir licences that had been grant& to operators who were nov■ going out of business.
Mr de Greef said that thE prices of these licences rangec up to £285 per ton of operatinc. capacity, making the top price! for the licences around £5,70C per vehicle on the licence to bE bought.
He said that the co-operativE had set up its own insurancE company to cut costs and hac engaged in bulk fuel buying tE achieve the same effect — bu even so a tipper operator's cost! were running at about £27,31( per vehicle in the Netherland per year for a 15-ton capacit, vehicle covering 40,000 miles ; year.