Furniture Carrier Denies Rate-cutting
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ALLEGATIONS of serious rate-eutting by Mitchell Bros., Westcott Street, Hull, were made at Bridlington; last week, when Mitchell's applied for two extra furniture .vans. They wanted a 35-mile radius of Hull to work for Great Universal Stores and two independent concerns. Five road operators joined British Railways in objecting.
For Mitchell's, Mr. R. Paterson said that since the easing of hire-purchase restrictions there had been a . sharp increase in furniture sales, with the result that Mitchell's were unable to meet their customers' requirements. They were already having to give away household removal work.
To aggravate matters, G.U.S. Transport, [.td., withdrew two furniture vans from the area last June. A point to be borne in mind was that, with the increase in hire-purchase, there was an increase in repossession of goods, so drivers had to be prepared to be met with carving knives and rolling-pins.
Mr. G. B. Mortimer, Mitchell's
manager. told Mr. Payne, for the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers, that he had not cut the Association's rate of 21s. 3d. an hour to 16s. 6d. He admitted, how-ever, that he had resigned from the Association.
Mr. Payne then called Mr. A. P. Long, transport manager of G.U.S. Transport and Blaydon's removing department— both Great Universal Stores subsidiaries. He said he had not deliberately withdrawn two vans, but had had to remove them because work was slack. Although his transport company was meant to work at cost, not profit, Mitchell's could do jobs even cheaper. The parent company were "pulling strings" to gct the work done by Mitchell's instead of by their own subsidiary.
To this, Mr. Paterson said that if the parent company wanted to use Mitchell's at the expense of their own transport, a case had been made out.
Maj. F. S. Eastwood, Yorkshire Licensing Authority, adjourned the case.