Yorkshire Bid to Raise R.H.A. Membership
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DECISIONS to launch immediately an intensive membership drive in the West Riding (Leeds) Area of the Road Haulage Association, and to take steps towards establishing liaison with the hauliers' grouping movement in the area, were reached when the area cornmittee quickly followed up the signing of the Perry merger-scheme agreement by holding a meeting in Leeds. A move for national liaison between the R.H.A. and the grouping movement was also recommended by the committee.
The plan behind the membership campaign, which has a 100 per cent. recruitment target, has been encouraged by several factors. First, there is a psychological advantage in striking while the merger iron is hot, so to speak. Secondly, many hauliers in the area are not association members, but during the prolonged merger negotiations membership recruitment efforts have been virtually at a standstill. Thirdly, the post-war problems looming ahead are cited as being an urgent reason for the stit'engthening of organization among hauliers.
Consummation of the merger, it is pointed, out, provides a strong lever to apply in the case of non-association operators, who in the past have pleaded the duplication of associations as a ,reason for remaining aloof from .menibership. A first step in the campaign will be to circulate among all potential .R.H.A. members in the area a leaflet
setting out 12 reasons why they should . . join. Discussion concerning the hauliers' grouping movement indicated a strong desire for liaison between the R.H.A. and that movement. The National Association of Road Transport Groups, it was pointed out, had not been envisaged when the Perry merger plan was framed, and, therefore, no complaint could be made because no provision was made.
It was decided to invite hauliers' groups in the area to participate hi an arrangement whereby they would collectively have facilities in relation to R.H.A. on lines similar to those of an R.H.A. functional group, and to recommend that R.H.A. heaclquarteis should suggest such an arrangement nationally to the National Association of Road Transport Groups.
The functional group, it was agreed, was included in the Perry plan, so as to provide for specialist types of haulage, such as sand and gravel transport, cattle carrying and furniture removing: but when the first Perry report was published the National Association of Road Transport Groups had . not been envisaged. With the advent and rapid growth of the latter movement, it was felt most desirable that the "R.H.A. should have a means for contact with it.
For the purpose-of representations on road haulage matters to the Government, there should be consultations between the two organizations with the object of securing that only one point of -view would be placed before the authorities.