NAF.W.R. Rates Schedule Soon
Page 50
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AS quickly as possible, the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers is to prepare a standard schedule of rates for removals to which its members would be expected to adhere. This resolution was passed at the Association's annual conference which took place in London last week.
The president, Mr. J. Day, said that he had received a suggestion from the Wect Midland section of the Association th.it in view of the purchase tax on commercial vehicles and the addition of 9d. per gallon to the tax on fuel, rates should be increased for local work by Is. per hour and for long-distance work by 10 per cent.
Purchase Tax Burden
Mr W. hard, chairman of the castings and information committee, dealt with the statistical side of the matter. So far as the purchase tax was concerned, he stated, the equivalent addition to the ordinary purchase price of a vehicle would be 28 per cent. Taking a figure of £1,250 from the Association's schedule of costs as the price of the vehicte, that would also be subject to an addition of £350, making it £1,600. Ilia increase in interest would be that on £350, which at 4 per cent. was .£14 per annum.
The additional depreciation, calculated on a five-year basis, would be £70. It was customary in assessing costs of furniture removals to divide the depreciation between the standing charges and the running costs. According to the usual basis. £34 would be allocated to standing charges and, adding the £14 for extra interest, there would be an addi tional annual debit of £48. Spread over 1,920 working hours per annum, that would be equivalent to an increase of 6d. per hour in the standing charges.
Operating Costs Up The running cost on account of depreciation would be £36, and that, divided by an annual mileage of 12,000, was equivalent to id. per mile. The increase due to petrol tax, for a mileage of 10 per gallon, was equivalent to 0.9d. per mile. The addition on account of the recent increase in tyre prices was equivalent to a further 0.1d., so that the total increase in running ebsts was ld. per mile on account of these two items. Adding the id. per mile for depreciation, there was a total increase of lid. per mile in the operating costs.
The increase of 6d. per hour was equivalent to 20 per cent. -on the previous figure of 2s. 61, and the increase of a lid. per mile on the previous figure of 6id. was 28 per cent.
11 operators depreciated their vehicles over a period longer than five years, there would be a corresponding increase for maintenance costs, so that, in effect, the result of the Budget increases would still be the same.
Mr. Isard gave .a hint that .other figures for cost might be affected as, for n16 example, insurance premiums, which might be increased because of extra cost of the vehicle.
Mr. H. C. Hallam foresaw that the Association would have a separate wages council which would deal, amongst other things, he hoped, with the provision of adequate remuneration for indoor staffs. So far as vehicles were concerned, he expected that pantechnicons would be produced capable of even better performance, but wondered ho W long it would be before longdistance removals were done by air. Upto-date and well-maintained vehicles were an advertisement for the company that owned them.
Mr. K. B. LaLonde said that the industry was now commencing its most difficult period and the Association could play a great part in shaping the future. The years 1920 to 1930 were years of expansion, also of rate-cutting and under-payment of employees. Ratecutting still existed.
Rates Schedule and R.H.E.
The Association should evolve a rates schedule to enable it to negotiate with the Road Haulage Executive.
He pointed out that the small-lots bureaux, which incorporated a rates schedule, had been successful, also that rates agreed amongst local operators for local . traffic were being well observed. The solution to all ratecutting problems was for operators to get closer together, and this applied particularly in the case of long-distance removals.
He said that during a recent period he had done a number of long-distance removals from the West country to the North, but in only one case had he used his o■un vehicles. In all the others he had utilized the services of fellow members and actually had made more profit out of those than in the single case in which he used his own vehicle, and he did that only because there was a return load available. He saw no reason why a rates schedule should not be put into force by the Association and penalties enforced against offending members.
. Mr. A. R. M. Walker said that the situation in which the industry found itself was one of danger. He was referring to the conditions arising from the fact that free industry was in com petition with the State. He said that there was need to pay attention to the conditions under which the two sectiohs of the industry' could work together, and they should contrive means of accommodating one another.
He referred to the cost-of-livingindex and pointed out that there was no provision in the Government figures for cost of removals. Furniture removing, he said, was an excluded traffic under the 1947 Act because of -the intimate and personal service which was rendered to the public. The Act itself, he said, was now seen to be had and forced upon the Government by extraneous circumstances. Denationalization was impracticable.
Mr. Walker suggested that a rates structure would be practicable only in the event of complete liaison, between the State-owned concerns and the freeenterprise companies, but he pointed out that the Government would want a schedule of maximum rates, whereas the Association was concerned with one of minimum rates
Warehousing at a Loss
Suggestions for a schedule of storage charges were made in a paper by Mr. W. D. Woodbridge, who also raised the question of whether warehouses should be graded. Information obtained by the Association in 1941, upon which controlled storage rates had been based until recently, had revealed that a third of the industry was working at a loss.
The average overall profit was only 6 per cent. over costs. He suggested that the unit for charges should be something like 100 cubic ft., instead of the 600-cubic-ft. vanload unit now used. The speaker felt that grading could not be done on a geographical Or a quality basis.
Mr. Thomas Ormesher dealt with the history ot the Association, now
50 years old and 1,100 strong. He said that the industry introduced lift vans in 1900. They were announced. in America as an innovation in 1920, whilst the railways came to know about them and advertised their utility in 193C.
Association Respected
Lord Lucas of Chilworth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, deputized for the Minister
at the jubilee banquet. He said that the Association was highly respeted, especially with regard to the quality of service rendered to the public. Relae lions between the Association and the. Ministry were admirable. He referred to the fact that members were dealing only with excluded traffic, and said that he understood they were not quite happy about the competition from the R.H.E. He said that no one was happy in the face of competition, and felt sure that the N.A.F.W.R. would succeed if it continued to regard its object as service to the public.
Major-Geneial G. N. Russell, chairman of the RUE., said he hoped that the Executive and the Association would work in co-operation.