Straight talkin at RHA conferenci
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The Road Haulage Association must reorganise and it won't be easy, says chairman. E 1981 Road Haulage AssoLion conference at Bourneruth's Royal Bath Hotel earlier 3 week had an air of expeccy about it.
;peeches came from the new ansport Secretary. David well; the newly appointed A director-general, Freddie skett; the Road Transport In;try Training Board director'era!, Eric Tindall; a leading kbencher, lain Mills, MP; and editor of Commercial Motor, ) Sherriff. With these perforTs, let us hope the members nt home with more to think )ut than the unpredictable ether at Bournemouth.
n his second and final year as A chairman, Ken Rogers, in opening speech at the conence, among other things, iched on fuel costs, rates, ges, Armitage, the roads proimme, heavy goods vehicle ting, and the possible reorgaation of the Association.
Ar Rogers looks forward to extension of the Associart's commercial activities; the ablishment of a profitable )scription and other income ;e; and the expansion of serest° membership.
'Now may not be the most aropriate time to be making Ise expansionist statements, make no mistake, unless :se are achieved, the future of a Association cannot be aired."
ieferring to the possibility of 14 existing areas being irged into five or six larger lions (CM September 5), Mr gers said that reorganisation :uld not be easy
'Unless this reorganisation .1 be achieved, unless the reting economies are realised, less the associated issues are ed and resolved, there will be rery large question mark over future of this Association in present form. We must today :olve to support the Associan during its difficult time and I pe that this conference will )vide a forum for airing many the anxieties and fears that I DW exist about this matter." 'The need is now not so much closeness to the membership t for a concentration of seres so that a high level of as
sistance can be achieved at a relatively low cost. The RHA is amongst the last national trade associations not to have a regional structure," he told delegates.
Mr Rogers, turning to haulage rates, claimed customers have enjoyed a "rates honeymoom" for far too long.
"Haulage operators have been paying 1981 costs yet receiving 1978 or 1979 rates for doing the job. This is the economics of a mad house and must soon come to an end.
"I am already on record as saying that I have a threat and a promise. The threat is to customers who will shortly be required to pay higher rates and the promise is to operators who can soon expect them. It is a fact of economic life that as soon as we come to the next upward turn in the trade cycle, these consequences will follow as sure as night follows day."
The chairman also spoke about wages. Trades unions, he said, seem to be indicating that they do not understand "the kind of game we are all in at present".
"I can only suppose that those who are drawing up claims are not working and are living in a different world from ourselves and our drivers. These claims are simply not realistic and if pursued could only be described as irresponsible.
"While there may be good times ahead, they are still some way off and we — operators and drivers together — will only get through if we can co-operate on a reasonable level and agree a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. I do not believe in the two sides of industry. We are all in this together; let us go forward together."
Another warning for the unions came when Mr Rogers talked about the "growing threat posed by the unofficial trade union action of issuing container base stamp cards to drivers operating from container depots".
"The fact that certain drivers are excluded from this work unavoidably involves their employers and this illegal interference in the management of the fleets of those operators is wholly unacceptable and will be sternly opposed by the Association," he said.
The Government also came in for some criticism from Mr Rogers when he talked about the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "inexcusable activities" which surrounded his 20p (later reduced to 10p) increase on fuel in the Spring Budget.
"It is certainly true that 20p was reduced to 10p, but that is no credit to the Chancellor — in fact, it is a credit to the RHA," On Armitage, Mr Rogers felt that it was "extraordinary that a matter of such urgency and containing recommendations of such self-evident good is taking as long as this to come to resolution".
"Any further delay in knowing what is to happen will seriously affect not only the operating side of the industry, but also t manufacturing industry as %. try to struggle out of the reeE sion," he said.
Mr Rogers felt that the " called" road programme is nc so small that it is just a ragbag free-standing schemes. One the reasons for Britain's ever minishing international credit ity, he said, is its gross failure come to terms with the ro needs of motor vehicles.
But his criticisms did not st. there. The Government's de sion to sell hgv testing statio to the private sector is ill advis he said.
"If this programme go ahead it will be under the ste gaze of those representative ganisations which have the n ponsibility of protecting a safeguarding their members' terests. The RHA," he said, "v rtainly be there."
With the RTITB's Eric Tindall esent at the conference, Ken )gers said that there is now a ry strong feeling in the indus r that the time has come to eatly reduce the Board's outit, scope and activities.
"As an industry, we can see no stification for a compulsory ry over which we have no ntrol. We believe that the )ard should adopt an advisory nsultetive role and that its prent top heavy bureaucracy be duced to a more appropriate
The first guest speaker at the rnfe re n e was CM editor lain lerriff, who delivered a hard tting, no frills speech which motioned much of the RHA. )eaking on the Public Image of
e industry, Mr Sherriff said at although the image is bad, at is not inevitable. The image
n be changed, but the change ill not take place if hauliers sit Ick and try to ride the punches, said,
"Of course, your industry does imething now and then, but airily in a defensive role. It has nored the axiom that the best ethod of defence is attack. And ere is plenty of scope for that. "Dirty vehicles — and there e plenty of them — untidy driv s and slow-moving, smoke nitting lorries abound our lads. These are factors over hich you all have direct inrence."
Campaigns by Friends of the irth and railway lobbies, and e general use of the term "jug3rnaut" all help to form public Anion, said Mr Sherriff, and e introvert nature of the Assoation does nothing to counter iese adverse factors, he aimed.
"You are allowing and in rally ways encouraging rrmed comment to damage your public image. If this was merely a cosmetic matter you would be correct in doing nothing about it."
But he went on to say that business is being damaged, services are undervalued, rates are depressed, and profitability eroded.
"To change the image will take money and effort. These have been the elements which have halted your involvement in public and press relations in the past. I suspect that nothing in this presentation will change your attitude."
The problem facing the industry, and to some extent it falls on the shoulders of RHA members, claimed Mr Sherriff, is to persuade the public that road haulage is an essential service. The main opposition comes from the environmental group — a lobby that are, in the main, ill-informed, uninformed or completely biased." But they certainly influence public opinion, according to lain Sherriff.
"It is accepted that the industry does some lobbying, but unlike that of the environmentalists, it is neither concerted nor sustained. The RHA has the Minister's ear and the odd MP on the backbenches can be recruited on occasions when an issue is raised. But that is totally inadequate.
"You will have heard, no doubt, that the RHA brief to the Members of Parliament on the Armitage debate, which was called at short notice, arrived at the House of Commons the day after the debate. You did too little too late. The result was that barely a voice was heard in support of your opinion and those which were raised in your support were cautious and muted."
If public opinion has to be changed and public support won, a more concentrated approach must be planned and executed. It is pointless leaving matters in the hands of senior officers, area secretaries or subarea chairmen, said Mr Sherriff, who told conference that "You are still using 1930s tactics to fight 1980s battles.
"Too little is being done to change your image and most of that is being conducted, organised and sponsored by people outside the Association," he claimed.
The RHA, said Mr Sherriff, is one organisation that blamed the media for a bad press or even worse, no press. But he added that the Association gets the press it deserves.
"Your press relations are at about their lowest ebb ever — not because you do not employ a press officer, but because he is restricted in what he can say and has insufficient resources. More press activity is essential. Consequently, more investment is required.
"Would it be too much to suggest that levy of E1 per vehicle should be allocated to your press and publicity officer in your efforts to gain respect and win over public opinion."
Mr Sherriff's far from complimentary presentation closed with more criticism of the Association,
"Of your 13,500 members, less than 10 per cent have found the time, the enthusiasm or the resources, to attend this or any previous conference. This demonstrates surely, that the general member is less than interested in the RHA or its public image. Or can it be the conference content is not as attractive as it should be, the venue is wrong or there has always been an attitude of taking from rather than giving to the Association?
"Organising a conference is yet another specialised field, like press and public relations. It is not a function which can successfully be performed by people who cannot treat it as a primary function."
With Ken Rogers's remarks undoubtedly lodged in his mind, RTITB director-general Eric Tin
dell took the conference pla form and told delegates thr now is precisely the time whe industrial training should be er couraged. For either Goverr merit or industry to pretend the rising industrial costs can be rm voluntarily at the present time absurd, he said.
"We need more investmer and more Government aid fc real industrial training, not less.
Mr Tindall congratulated th RHA for the responsible rr actions it has made to the reviel by the Secretary of State for Err ployment into industriE training.
"I accept the need to cot stantly review the way in whic your Board functions; my onl reservations are about the su,c gestion that road haulage i hived off from the rest of th present Board's scope. Esser tially I am worried about the co: of changing existing arrangc ments, about the viability of national structure for an industr of only 150,000 people if we tak out the security industries, an because I am sure that w should be moving contrary t history if we fail to see transpo as a unity' and not a range c competing options with all th parochial thinking that that ma engender."
Mr Tindall warned conferenc that if ITBs are abolished, SOME one will have to recreate then or something very similar t
them, in the future.
"Your ''Trainin Board," I, "is currently the industrial ly which represents you in r interface with Government ■ artments, other industries, er countries, and society at le on matters of training. I eve that your Board has conently taken the view that unit represents the industry, it no real case for existence. a result it has frequently rid itself in the role of piggy in middle."
Pr Tindall also reiterated his ice that if training does not , do not do it.
believe that if training for lething other than job skills iven, then this is not an empees responsibility and if he s it, he should be reimbursed he cost of doing it.
_ooking to the future, we e to balance the rising costs idustrial training against the oubted future needs for betand higher skilled people. lin all our major competi, Governments are offering port in this area on an in'sing scale. It is unrealistic to eve that, unlike every other or industrial nation in )pe, we can accomplish this out some form of state sidy."
'hat industry needs is one y sensitive to its interests responsive to its needs, :h can identify training reements and make the best of combined industry and ernment monies to best ieve those requirements, Mr Tindall. Such bodies, he 3d, already exist and have e so since the mid-Sixties, in TBs.
"hey should receive Governit funding and backing ect only to the monitoring )ssary to ensure the proper of public funds.
3overnment intervention ugh a multitude of different icies, most of which are coned with social rather than Istrial needs, endangers all the ITBs have created over the last 17 years. In no industry is this more true than transport and distribution," he said.
In complete contrast to the theme of Mr Tindall's speech, the MP for Meriden, lain Mills, gave a Parliamentary view of the Armitage Report. Despite the rational conclusions of the Armitage committee, he said, most of the arguments rage on and can only be stilled by a decision from Parliament and Government.
Mr Mills told delegates that it is sad to relate that in many cases there has been partial or even total misunderstanding of the Armitage recommendations and that many responsible bodies have written in worry and concern about "introducing juggernauts to our roads and villages to destroy peace and damage sewers and roads".
"The anti-heavy truck campaign has been effective and resulted in the Government being on the defensive — particularly with its own loyal back-benchers. The industry has tried to counter the anti lobby and to correct the many myths that have been deliberately fostered by a campaign of its own, but most MPs have found as I have that our heavy lorry files are heavy with letters against change and very light with letters in support."
The degree of suspicion that the heavy lorry will cause more noise, disturbance and damage is high from Parish Councils, Village Resident Groups and Women's Institutes and, said Mr Mills, if we are to see a better more civilised lorry in return for an increase in maximum weight then we all need to persuade those who are concerned that the change really will be a benefit.
"If the Minister does ask for a decision in the House on a free vote then you will have to work very hard on both Tory and Labour MPs to convince them that the package really is a package and will actually happen. Even with this effort I believe that the vote will be very, very close.
"By eliminating the 44-tonner the country understands that we have rejected what is known as the 'juggernaut'. However, there is still massive suspicion that 38 or 40-tonners can still cause distress, so it is up to all concerned in the industry and in Parliament to ensure that the real facts are fully understood," he concluded.
In his first major speech to RHA members, a new directorgeneral (after 21 years) was bound to provoke interest. Indeed, Freddie Plaskett told con
ference that he has arrived at his new job with a fresh viewpoint after leaving the uniformed branch of the road haulage industry — the Royal Corps of Transport.
His entertaining, but cautious address told delegates much of what they had already heard from previous speakers. He also offered some words of congratulation and advice to the membership.
"As a fraternity I find you tend to speak your mind — it is an attitude which also prevails in the world which I have just left. So if you are blunt, plain and forthright we will understand each other and long may it remain that way."
Mr Plaskett, no doubt with Ken Rogers's earlier speech in mind, has concluded that there is scope for change within the Association. He believes there is scope for a reduction in the number of area offices; that there is scope for the sensible modernisation of accounting systems; and that there is scope for the introduction of more membership services.
"The RHA seal of approval means quite a lot in the industry at the moment, but I believe that it can mean a lot more — and it will mean a lot more."
Again, with earlier remarks undoubtedly absorbed Mr Plaskett also talked about the haulier's image to the public.
"We've been told that one of the RHA's major problems is that the national press and media don't see or hear much of us as an Association representing the fraternity of hauliers. This in itself may not in fact be such a bad thing. There is no need for the RHA to maintain i sky-high profile."
Mr Plaskett is persuaded tha not only the RHA but also thi transport lobby as a whole is be ing flayed and indeed driver from the field on the issue of thi lorry's place in the environment.
"The lunatic fringe of the envi ronmental lobby — the placer( and sandal brigade — has it al their own way. Their argument: are emotive, of course.
"We can't expect the British public to have a love affair with the heavy lorry, but we can, and believe we must, present therr with the facts — and our facts can be dramatised too."
His criticisms did not stt4 there. Inevitably, the Govern merit came in for a slating.
"We would not be in such C defensive position in relation tc the public if our Governments had spent on the road network all the money that they raise or vehicle excise duty — let alone the taxes they raise on fuel, spares and services to keep our lorries on the road. This is the sort of message we should be getting over to the public.
"But it is a subject which affects all members of the RHA and I believe that members should air their views on it to the press, to their MPs and to anyone else who will listen,at every possible opportunity." Even the placard and sandal brigade, presumably.
Last year's conference theme at Scarborough was Haulage in Crisis. Ken Rogers said then, "Let us look back at the Scarborough conference as the time we started to turn the corner."
It appears that that corner is still being turned.