• The Government's decision to push the Road Transport Industry
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Training Board out into the cold this week should send every haulier in the UK to his or her MP demanding a change of heart.
Mrs Thatcher never did like industrial training boards: purge after purge has left the RTITB one of only a handful of training boards still left in action. It is needed, yet no-one seems prepared to stand up and fight for it.
Cut away the gloss of Norman Fowler's proposal that the industry itself should organise and fund the RTITB, without any Government support or backing, and you can see the death of road transport training. It is an appalling idea.
Frank Griffin of the United Road Transport Union is right to say that the RTITB will not be able to support itself without compulsory funding imposed on hauliers by law. Given the choice, how many transport firms are going to voluntarily cough up to fund national training programmes? None.
Haulage firms are not altruistic, paternalistic organisations. They live in a cut-throat world where the chance to trim another I% off their costs (their payroll levy is currently 0.8%) will be grabbed with both hands.
Look abroad, if you want to survive. In France and West Germany, operators are improving their training efforts. HGV drivers are like gold dust already in certain parts of Britain. Skilled fitters will soon be extinct in some areas too. We are falling woefully behind.
III-advised moves to reduce the importance and scope of vital organisations like the RTITB as a sacrifice on the altar of inane political dogma have to be stopped. Hauliers should stand up and be counted now, before it is too late.