Fighting back
Page 44
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• I can have some sympathy with the French truck drivers in their current dispute with their government.
Dealing with governments is similar to dealing with a room full of intransigent, stubborn infants. To come to this conclusion one only has to wonder at the reasoning behind our government's insistence on retaining vehicle excise duty.
While I'm not advocating mimicking the Dutch in 1985 or the French in 1992, were British hauliers to take some action it would ram home with tremendous force a message to the infantile mandarins of Whitehall: our haulage industry is not a bottomless pit of money to be pillaged at Whitehall's leisure whenever the state kitty needs topping up.
Perhaps it is time for the RBA, the FTA and the TGWU to get together in a unified manner. It had better happen before 1993 — before we all attend the funeral of British haulage.
If we don't we're in serious danger of being killed off by indifference from the management, incompetence from the state and cowardice from the labour force.
David Williams Port Talbot, West Glamorgan.