Privilege and professionalism
Page 36
Page 37
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE TRANSPORT Association comes high on my list of organisations that deserve to be better known. In such a varied industry as road transport, journalists gradually get to know the organisations and individual companies which court publicity and those that do not.
The Transport Association, throughout its long history, has been well content to hide its light under a bushel. It believes in minding its own business, and its business is solely the welfare of its member firms.
Seeking to break through the skin — or maybe the tough hide — of reticence of the TA, I visited its present chairman. Glyn Samuel, in Yorkshire and its long-time secretary, George Percival, in Birmingham. Before my session with George I had the pleasure of lunching with some 40 TA members at the Midland Hotel in "Brum", renewing acquaintance with some old friends from the industry and meeting others known to me by reputation only.
The veterans in road haulage will recall that during the war, Ministry of Transport controllers organised road transport movements. When hostilities ceased and the industry was freed from its bureaucratic constraints, the contacts cemented in wartime were continued in certain areas.
39 companies banded together to form th.e TA and some of this nucleus is still. in membership. George Percival, from the earliest days, has been the quiet, efficient, responsive secretary, the repository of the outlook of the founders and guide, counsellor, and friend of successive TA chairmen.
Road haulage nationalisation was one of the policies of the post-war Labour government. The TA member companies were probably as dismayed as any other section of road haulage about this but they had experienced State control of road transport during the war and they were realists. -If we
are candidates for acquisition by the State does it not make sense to offer ourselves, as a body, to the Road Haulage Executive (the relevant part of the British Transport Commission)?"
Accordingly the 39 companies formed themselves into a single company. TA Realisation Ltd, and this company offered itself on a voluntary basis to the then Government. The individual companies. spread over the country, formed some of the Units which in due time evolved into depots, groups and districts in the RHE and subsequently BRS network.
This initiative by the TA was well-conceived. The Government shelled out £21/2 m on account -the total figure exceeded £.4m — and the money received was shared out in accordance with asset values. Many of the TA companies were sizeable, with 50 or 60 vehicles, and the compensation payments no doubt came in useful when road haulage was largely de-nationalised following the 1953 Transport Act.
The TA formed a hardship fund from a percentage of the State compensation money because it was realised that some firms' valuation could have been affected by a year or two of poor trading conditions. This concern for the welfare of group member companies typifies the TA philosophy and it explains the intense loyalty which the Association inspires.
Another advantage of the voluntary State takeover was that many of the leading personalities in TA companies became senior executives in the RHE organisation. Those who surrendered control of their own companies had the heady compensation of power over much larger fleets, and a much bigger work-force.
Coming right up to date, the TA today has 80 companies in membership. Not all are large, though most, I think, are in the 20 to 100-vehicle fleet category. The steady growth from 39 to 80 prompts the question, 'Why so few?'" With over 46,000 "professional" hauliers, of whom around a third are members of the RHA, what special restraining factors have limited TA growth.
To answer that question we must look to the rules of the TA which, were formulated at the inception around 1946 and have never been materially amended. (The rules and any other documentation were not made available to me.) George Percival said that a crucial rule provided that any member could veto an application for membership from any professional road haulage firm in its vicinity, which presumably means within its catchment area.
The rule categorically gives member firms the right to veto the membership of an applicant firm in the home area.
Essentially, the TA is a selfhelp organisation. From its ear liest beginnings, road haulage operators have contended with two basic problems — return loads, and breakdowns. An ex cessively fragmented industry which is, for the most part, under-capitalised. has yet to make satisfactory arrangements, on an industry-wide basis, to deal with the backloading problem.
If this were not true there would be less said in the trade press about cut-price clearing houses and owner-drivers driven to accept ludicrously low return load rates_ And the breakdown problem has only recently been alleviated by specialist national recovery organisations, The nucleus of TA member firms recognized these problems over 30 years ago.
They all recognised that long-distance haulnge — for all member firms are in this cate gory — requires effective backloading at rates which are truly economic. TA members would not insult one another by offering sub-marginal traffic for return loading.
An association of firms which are in every sense well run and economically viable and which, further, undertakes to operate within a defined set of principles. provides its membership with a degree of certainty, in commercial dealings, which is a pearl of great price in an overcompetitive industry where bankruptcy is not infrequent and where slow-payers abound.
TA member firms have always been able to rely on the prompt settlement of accounts as between member firms. They have also known that one member will take as much care to assist a stranded vehicle belonging to a member firm as would be given to their own vehicle in trouble.
George Percival tells the story of a TA member's vehicle turning up for a load at Beresford Transport's depot at Tunstall. There was a Beresford vehicle in the depot loaded for the base area of the other TA member's vehicle. With an altruism so creditable as to be breath-taking in these days when anything goes, Mr K. Beresford (senior) (now deceased) called for the load to be transferred. No wonder TA members prize membership of their very select club!
TA companies contribute a quite modest "'levy' on demand to finance the organisation. A small member firm might pay a minimum of £50 perhaps twice a year. Larger firms pay £2 per vehicle in respect of the vehicles in their fleet which can expect to benefit from TA membership.
The method of organisation of the TA is almost unique in my experience and it would not be possible. I suspect, if it were a much larger body. For the TA general meetings are attended by principals of companies. The organisation has no executive or policy-making committee. The agendas are drawn up by George Percival and the current chairman and the meetings are in the nature of discussion forums where views can be freely exchanged.
As. George Percival says, the TA rarely takes positive action. It is not a publicity-seeking or promotional body. In every sense, it is a self-regulating group concerned to safeguard its members' interests discreetly, with a minimum of fuss.
Because many of the TA member firms are sizeable. employing fleet engineers and traffic managers. there has developed in recent years a programme of weekend conferences of engineers and traffic managers.
These -staffmeetings are also attended by the principals, but I gather that the -policyaspects of the TA have no place in the discussions
In other words, though we live in a climate of participatory management, even industrial
democracy, the employees of TA companies must not presume to expand the conference agendas. The nature of the TAI perhaps, is such that an employee role, or even a trade. union involvement, would not be seen as appropriate.
I stressed above that the TA has no executive committee and that its attitudes emerge from informal discussions. The chairmen serve for two years, normally. and I wondered whether the obvious choice stands out, since a meeting of 50 or more would not always plump for the best man. I gather that there has been a problem once or twice. One year there was an election. At other times the chairman, I gather, has had to be " im pressed" .
Attendance at meetings is held by the TA to be important and failure to attend at least one meeting a year is ground for exclusion — unless for acceptable reasons.
The essence of the TA is that all members must know their colleagues. Even for such a prosaic function as fuel-issuing there may be contact between member firms at regular intervals. But as I understand it, TA members feel that those not prepared to attend meetings regularly so demonstrate that they are not really in tune with the TA self-help philosophy. I'm sure they are quite right.
How does a well-established road haulier get into membership of the TA? The procedure, as I understand it. is that he makes a formal application to the secretary, setting out his case. Essentially, the TA want to know that a new member has something to offer in the way of return loads at an economic rate. The Association is also concerned to learn about the applicant's facilities for repair and refuelling, for help in emergency and so on If the membership — and the nearest local member — supports the application a visit is made by two or three members to inspect the facilities. Every sizeable haulage concern would probably like to join but the number of those in a position to help, without hurting existing members, may be strictly limited.
This, of course, is arguable, and I have no doubt that the modest size of the TA's membership has exercised some members, since it does stand out that 80 is a very tiny percentage of the 46,000-odd operators in this country. Perhaps the TA would say that if other groups of hauliers want to start a similar federation, there is nothing to stop them.
At various times the TA has considered the merits of quantifying benefits to its member firms by listing the tonnage or revenue achieved from reciprocal back-loading assistance. I gather from George Percival that such exercises are no longer held to be worth the effort. The members themselves understand the benefits, and the degree of security, which the TA provides for those fortunate enough — and deserving — to be members.
One point is important. There are a few firms in membership with multiple companies but by and large groups are not. I think, welcomed, if only because a group directive might cut across the implicit duty of a member firm to put itself out for another member company in a financially embarrassing way. If • member firms were invariably selfish, always looking to their immediate profitability, rather than to aiding a fellow-member in distress, the cement which keeps the TA together would be weak indeed.
Of course there would be countervailing advantages if all the companies in Transport Development Group, for example. were automatically members of TA. One could argue the same point for the BRS companies, especially with the BRS Rescue function as a Makeweight.
But the relatively compact and self-sufficient TA is a manageable animal. I fancy it is a biddable animal too, owing a huge debt to George Percival who has always been ready to say that what the members want is what they deserve to get.
One can imagine a number of new facilities which might interest some member firms, such as traffic exchanges in parts of the country where membership is sparce. Such things as bulkbuying facilities have been canvassed and rejected over the years because most of the member companies are well able to enjoy maximum discounts as biggish fish in an industry of minnows.
Reflecting on the TA as it has developed, one feels that wartime controls, and the subsequent experience of many members within the RHE / BRS set-up generated the knowledge and wisdom to justify the co
operative and altruistic commercialism of the organisation. They would not claim to be other than insular in their approach.
Outsiders, envious above all I suspect, of the decently rated back-loading traffic, would say the TA is a selfish club of fatcats. Perhaps the fat-cats have qualified for the cream by years of virtuous road haulage operation, giving service with integrity to customers, employees and each other?
Many of its principals are active workers for the RHA. It might be possible to claim that the RHA would be much weaker than it is if TA members, by and large, were not keen workers on RHA committees.
Obviously, some RHA officials would have reservations about a mini-trade association within its ranks. But the TA and RHA have proved that there is more to gain from acceptance of each other's roles than from backbiting.
I think it is fair comment that the TA is a bit too inwardslooking. It should open its meetings much more to the Press, whose contacts are generally in the convivial, rather than the reporting .context. The trade press would possibly be interested in reporting the discussions of TA fleet engineers and traffic managers, given that these meetings reflect a rather special standpoint of firms which flourish amidst adversity.
There may be room for much more grass-roots liaison in TA companies. Drivers must meet their opposite numbers but what of mechanics and traffic and secretarial staffs? Is there a case for internal advertisements through TA companies to advertise job vacancies?
What expertise garnered by these large, successful companies — in depot design, planning applications, vehicle maintenance, etc — could be made available to a wider audience without hurting TA members? What would be the difficulty of the TA publishing typical back-loading return rate patterns, having regard to the standard of customer service provided and the higher-thanaverage depot facilities of TA companies?
In short, I feel the corporate views of the TA on many matters of concern to road hauliers ought to be voiced. The views might or might not be a carbon copy of RHA views. They ought to differ, in view of the TA's nature. What about it, fat cats?