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In the article "Smokescreens", (CM, February 16) The Hawk attempts to ridicule lorry driver pickets by calling them "Heroic lorry driver pickets". He then poses three questions for your readers.
• Did they, like he, notice strikers smoking cigarettes at around 50p a packet?
• How could—they afford to smoke on strike pay?
• Or were they paying for their smokes with tax-free social security benefits that he and others, taxed to the eyebrows, provided for their starving families?
Your magazine is noted for its good factual information, so it's a pity that this issue was marred by this personal view, entirely unsupported by facts. Here are my answers to his questions: • Most people observing pickets on TV would have noticed them shivering in subzero conditions rather than noticing their smoking.
• What men do with their strike pay has the same answer as what The Hawk does with his salary. It's their own business!
• Lorry drivers pay taxes just like everyone else. Part of those taxes go towards the Welfare State.
That being so, if a driver's family qualifies for benefits, they are not getting them free. A great many more married drivers did not qualify.
Unmarried drivers did not qualify and yet they pay higher taxes than married drivers. How did The Hawk tell them apart from one another?
Other factors he didn't take into account were savings, thrifty housewives and good friends.
I would ask The Hawk to read his own magazine dated February 9, page 4, "Hattersley hits back".
This man, in common with other Labour Government ministers, has not got the slightest idea how the road haulage industry operates. He knew months before the strike that it was on the cards. Later events have shown that he and the Labour Government had to back-pedal on freezing haulage rates because they were incapable of understanding the consequence of their own folly.
Had this threat not been held against the employers they would have settled within one week, not four, as they did in the 1974 after the Scottish lorry drivers strike.
Finally I would like to say that the way The Hawk used the word heroic was insulting.
D. CAWLEY, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
CM covers all aspects of the road haulage and passenger transport industries with factual presentation on our news pages. But our feature writers necessarily express opinions. Bird's Eye View by The Hawk has an independent point of view; the journal's opinion is expressed by the editor in his weekly editorial. Another independent viewpoint which CM is proud to accommodate is that of Topic by Janus. In fairness to The Hawk I would say we bend over backwards to be fair to strikers in the UK, and a report — in the European Industrial Relations Review — says that on average no more state benefit is paid here than in other European countries. The point is that owing to low productivity we cannot afford in any walk of life what is afforded in the EEC. The needs of our industry require our workers to have an attitude whereby they bend over backwards to avoid strikes. And smoking is bad for you! — Editor.