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Motor? Does someone in the industry deserve a pat on the back, or a dressing down? Drop us a line at Commercial Motor, Room H203, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5A5 or fax us on 0181 652 8969. Alternatively you can e-mail us atMllesrIgnaIl()rbl.co.uk.
PLAYING FAIR?
Yet again the UK haulage industry is bleating about a few EU-based operators not playing fair. This time it is because Willi Betz, among many others, dares to employ non-EU drivers (at vastly reduced wages) to steal a march on its competitors. What did the industry expect?
If hauliers in EU member countries imagined for one minute that they were joining a protection club which would, in exchange for extra rules and regulations, keep those nasty foreigners away, they were mistaken. We all have to survive in the modern "global village" now: where would the likes of Hewlett Packard, Ford or IBM be if they could not employ people in non-EU countries to make products that they then sold in the EU?
Just thank your lucky stars that the major players don't employ Filipino drivers for 36p an hour (not that they wouldn't like to). If hauliers can neither operate profitably nor negotiate prices with their customers which allow profitable operation, they are indulging themselves in an expensive hobby and should either cease wasting their time on that hobby and find a proper job, or grin and bear it.
The simple reason that the big haulage companies have no time for Trans-Action's futile demonstrations is that they have nothing to demonstrate about. Do you hear them crying into their beer about the cost of fuel or road tax? No, because such considerations are worked into their rates.
That some of these firms pay such pathetic wages to their drivers, and expect them to be everywhere at once, on constant call, is the fault of the drivers (and possibly, if they belong to one, their unions), At the end of the day, a shiny new sleeper-cabbed Scania puts no food on the table of a driver's family—even if it is equipped with chrome air horns, a fancy paint job. a fridge and a CB. Anyone who willingly works in excess of 60 hours a week and still finds it necessary to break the hours laws deserves to be banned from holding an HGV licence, and that includes owner-drivers.
In short, if you cannot make a decent living working reasonable hours, under reasonable conditions, in your chosen profession, you chose the wrong profession. Get ajob in the financial sector; cash is going begging there.
And as fora Labour Government seeking to opt out of regulations which oblige workers to work a maximum of 48 hours per week, they should be ashamed of themselves. Why should workers deny themselves a family or social fife for the sole benefit of shareholders who hold no loyalty to anything except their bank balance?
A driver on a night out can't even pop down the pub fora couple of pints for fear of being breathalysed eight hours later. John Renton, Moxley, West Midlands.
FUEL FEARS
The plight of the British haulage industry due to the fuel escalator and high VED for "European" weight and dimension vehicles is not receiving the support it might have done, due partly to an uncomprehending government and public.
These bodies seem unable to realise that British hauliers are not "bleating" about higher taxes, designed to take traffic from an increasingly clogged road system (as set out in the white paper A New Deal For Transport), but are genuinely concerned that the direct competitor if based elsewhere in the EU is operating at a considerable advantage. Lower corporation tax is an advantage only after you have made a profiti The refusal to understand that even domestic haulage is now an international (EU) business seems to evade much of Parliament. In a recent debate at the House of Commons (21 April) the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Alan Milburn) said: "The United Kingdom haulage industry is extremely competitive by international standards and the best UK haulage fleets are better than any others in the world."
Shortly afterwards, when asked if he would veto the French government's diesel rebate, he exclaimed: "What the French Government decide to do is a matter for them."
This is hardly true as it has an obvious effect on the competitiveness of British haulage when tendering for all work in the market, even domestic work.
However, even if the worst comes to the worst and the British haulage industry ceases as we know it, I do not believe that the workers will be facing the dole queue as some have predicted. The jobs will still exist; it is only that the employer will cease to be British. A certain French haulier has demonstrated he is ready to employ British drivers and I have never heard any of these drivers complaining about theirjobs.
What is of worry is the increasing number of non-EU lorries I see an British roads (an issue which is being highlighted in Commercial Motor). I stop for a break at Corley services most Saturday evenings and without fail more than half the lorries parked are non-EU (on one occasion it was 10 out of 12).
These companies are not only running at an operating cost advantage but also the low wages they are said to pay would make it impossible for EU workers to compete for jobs.
The only thing that puts my mind at rest is that the EU as a whole is unlikely to stand for competition from outside the EU operating at an unfair advantage against member states.
If a problem develops I believe the EU will either tighten up existing permit law or introduce new legislation to protect European haulage. Julian Dockery, Ferry/ii/l, County Durham.
MINORITY INTEREST
Was your racism article (CM 20-26 May) itself carelessly racist? I cite incorrect use of the word "ethnic" in your writing. According to my dictionary, "ethnic" means "pertaining to or characteristic of a race or people". We, including all your staff, are all "ethnic". The word should not be used to mean "black", "Afro-Caribbean", "Asian", "Chinese", 'foreign", "non-European", "non-British", "non-white, or whatever category or group into which you want to try to put people.
My dictionary also lists (as now obsolete) the meanings: "heathen, pagan, not Jewish nor Christian". I do hope you did not mean that interpretation.
Beware the South Africa experience of categories, where Japanese were "white" but Chinese were "coloured'.
beware also the need for speed and space saving when inner city areas become inner cities (Birmingham, Leicester, Leeds but obviously not Plymouth, Liverpool, Newcastle) and, of course, ethnic minorities become just ethnic.
CR Baldwin, Birmingham.