Transport pointer in the Nortl
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John Durant visits the FTA's Northern office; meets a union leader who favour5 tachographs; and talks to an operator buying a 32-tonner as a spare
)URING a two-day trip north to oak at the state of play and :rends in transport I met: An operator buying a Leyland ioadtrain as a spare; A union leader who welcomes he January 1 date for tachojraph legislation implementaion;
I And heard of operators deiberately spending more on fehicle service during these lard times — and times really ire hard in Northumberland, )urham and Cumbria.
The operator is the Northern :lubs Federation Brewery. Ronlie Bell, head of its transport delartment, runs a fleet of 176 'ehicles from 32-tonners to Maina vans converted to lpg — all Iritish. The brewery is at least ine firm still doing well during he recession. "I have a new pare standing by as a company lalicy," said Ronnie. "The toadtrain will not go on the road ill we are ready."
The union leader is Geoff :gglestone, the Transport and ieneral Workers' Union No 8 legion transport commercial 'fficer, who despairs of getting letter wages and conditions for is drivers in a region in which, e says, there are so many cowJoys operating and underutting the rates of decent auliers.
"We opposed the tachoraph," said Geoff, "but now I ee it as the best thing to happen ) this industry for a long time. Ve can clean up this industry if le enforcement is firm, and get :d of the cowboys. There was a )t of hot air talked about the hgv cence when it was first introuced and professional drivers eing accompanied by a profesional basic rate. Hauliers here /ant 'professional drivers at ibourers' wages."
The operators who are spendig more on maintenance now re some members of the reight Transport Association. TA inspectors at the Associaon's northern headquarters in eeds told me that some firms ave stepped up the frequency f visits by the FTA's inspection ervice in order to get longer reable life out of their existing eets and delay capital expendi ture on the acquisition of new vehicles.
Geoff's union members work for hire or reward hauliers who are members of the Road Haulage Association or nothing; in quite a number of cases, says Geoff, they say that they are RHA members and that they never attend meetings.
While plenty of manufacturers in the UK have gone out of business and some of these had transport fleets, the professional hauliers in general have been the hardest hit.
However, FTA members too are being squeezed; at the end of October national membership stood at 15,215 — in October 1980 it was 16,106. The position is complicated by the fact that the FTA is a "secondary" trade association; a manufacturer is virtually obliged to belong to his own trade organisation but may not feel it vital to belong to the FTA on behalf of his tranport section.
But Bob Cross, FTA Northern Region controller, told me that while hardly anyone left the Association in 1980, this year hundreds have done so. Bob is probably right when he does not relate too much importance to figures; it depends on their interpretation, but put this way evidence of the trend is unavoidable. "We were a bit smug in the FTA last year," he said. "But
now the recession has really hit us.,
Every branch registration is counted as a member — this includes the CWS with 1,430 vehicles, Yorks Water Authority with 1,300 and Littlewoods organisation with 1,092.
Bob Cross is a trade association man. He has been with the FTA since 1974 and Regional controller for four years. At one time he was attached to the BSI in Manchester and later moved to the steel and wire industry; joining the FTA was his first skirmish with transport. He points out that North Yorkshire is not so far from the most northerly parts of England as some people suppose; his staff can reach the Tyne Bridge in an hour. In addition, Pred Anderton, who looks after the North-east and the North-west, lives in Sun
derland and is an asset to the Association in particular in that part of the world.
Bob told me that some transport managers have, contrary to those I mentioned earlier, been reducing their outgoings to the FTA by cutting down their number of vehicle inspections. "I hope they get away with it as this seems a false economy to me, and one day the chickens may come home to roost."
However, on an optimistic note, the FTA is recruiting — with some success. ''In a recession there has to be a good reason for joining, and as often as not it is linked to service."
At the moment, he said, the service in particular attracting operator attention is the FTA's latest — Freightcheck. By subscribing, members avoid having to undertake any other regular tachograph chart analysis. The service is a system of regular examination of tacho charts, carried out in operators' premises. Thorough vetting, and the production of reports, compliance with the legal requirements of the drivers' hours and tacho legislation is checked.
This service saves members the chore of chart checking; also the need to buy expensive equipment and the bother of training staff. The cost is, for example, E95 for four visits if you have five vehicles or fewer. "This service offers a good way to attract new members," said Bob.
"We are concerned about the recession and hope we are at the bottom, but there is no real evidence that this is so. Encouraging signs are the slight increases in new members, but transport has always been an industry where people are optimistic and where it's easier to start up. Our engineering business has been drifting down ever so slowly. One or two members of our staff have moved on and this has been the saving of us." To keep this in contea should point out that in FTA's Northern Regi however, 27,000 vehicle ins' tions a year are carried oui 30-odd inspectors plus assis regional engineers.
Leaving the FTA, I broke journey to hear BBC TV N North. The subject of Armit came up and unfortunately announcer spoke of "larger ries" — but at least road tr4 port was getting coverage c and above the "so and so r blocked by jack-knifed jug, naut" level. The RHA tripletrailer was screened, and a 1 Trailer representative talkec 25 per cent more payload ani per cent better fuel efficienc Armitage is implemented — more orders for York, wh workforce is now 180 compi' with 530 four years ago. F urgently needed is a decisi "Like yesterday," said York's presentative.
At Newcastle Geoff Egg tone gave me the backgroun, the current industrial relati situations (meetings with RHA not getting them m further forward, CM news pai many weeks). The TGWU 1,000 members in total in Drthumberland, Durham and =brie, and around 10,900 of ese are drivers.
Two thousand drivers have )en made redundant this year. In these circumstances how is that he has felt able to make rch tough statements about the dustry being better off without ound 25 per cent of operators ho say they cannot afford a E3 age increase to £83? And I ;ked what idea he had of how any drivers would then join e dole queues.
To the second question, Geoff !plied: "It could be a couple of lousand."
Geoff estimates that around per cent of TGWU drivers get ily the bare basic rates most eeks. Some tell him they ould be better off if they were iernployed and claimed social )curity. He expects that some ould be very little worse off 'ter a few weeks; married driv-s without children are taking Dme only £521£53 a week. On le other hand, drivers with the iree or four most reputable )mpanies earn £180/£200 gross
"without breaking every law in the book."
Geoff reckons that what is needed is a basic rate to cover drivers all .over the country. However, what Tyneside drivers have been trying to do this year is to get paid in line with the Scottish settlement agreed last winter with £83 basic for topweight men on a 40-hour week. He points out that Scottish drivers have greater earning potential. The South-east is the most prosperous area in the country and Scottish drivers drive. further, for instance, to reach it and have therefore more earning potential than those living in the North of England. That is why the basic is so important in the North.
What they do have in the North with some firms is a bonus of 25 per cent of what a vehicle earns — "three pence per kilometre when loaded only" and "other hair-brained bonus schemes."
For a long time Geoff has tried to get a Joint Industrial Council established to sort out wages. When he came to the region in 1980 Northumberland, Morpeth, Tyneside, Hexham, Sunderland, Durham and Carlisle were covered by an agreement based on Tyneside. .
Teesside had always had its own agreement. Last year's negotiations had resulted not in an agreement for the whole area but a recommendation to RHA members. But recently the RHA said an offer would be made for Tyneside and Hexham only while in all the other districts hauliers wanted to negotiate separately. This, Geoff said, had fragmented procedure. Many hauliers told him: "We don't want to know the RHA any more."
"So," he said, "I asked for as senting hauliers' groups like they have in Leeds and Bradford; the RHA reference does not seem relevant any more."
"So what," I asked, "is likely to happen with regard to a new agreement starting January 1?"
"I have the impression that drivers will stick out for £95 for 40 hours," Geoff replied. "I know more hauliers would go out of business if they paid it, but we have been forced into this 'job keep' situation. Remember, cutthroat rates and cowboys are damaging the good hauliers. What sort of membership does the RHA have in this region? So many hauliers don't go to meetings, are not members or have dropped out," Geoff said that he had lived in Hexham all his life and became an hgv driver at 21. Although industrial relations in the NorthEast are very good in the main — he hopes that Nissan is aware of this and builds a Datsun factory there — in road haulage there has never been a good set-up. Road hauliers seem to deem themselves to be able to keep outside of the sort of agreements made in other industries, he said. The RHA's late industrial relations officer, Chris Dixon, buried in South . Shields this year, to whose funeral he went, had had a lot to offer and he hoped his successor is aware of the possibilities.
Geoff said that he understood that the RHA will not agree that the issue of forming a JIC should be referred to ACAS. Another avenue might be the formation of ,a National JIC. Whatever happens, the situation could not be left for another 12 months. "If the RHA at national level cannot back the National Joint Industrial council, it is questionable whether we should negotiate with the RHA. Are they the best organisation to discuss wages?"
As Geoff had asked: "What sort of members does the RHA have?" I asked him what sort of members the TGWU has. "The Norman Tebbit talk of closed shops is not relevant here," he replied. "I try to keep politics out and we have very few militants. If Tebbit came here he might conclude that unions need more strength, not less!"
The day after I met Geoff, the TGWU, URTU and GMWU were due to meet the RHA again and the subject of a JIC would be raised (CM, December 5). Geoff said he had read in CM that RHA director-general Freddie Plaskett favours JICs. But apparently, Mr Le Conte (RNA Area Secr6tary), who would not be at that meeting, and RHA members, can please themselves. Geoff believes it is not practical for 11 different Areas all to do thE own thing.
Top Nissan executives, it wi reported in the national pre: last month, paid a special visit the North, purely to get a deep, look at industrial relations. L us hope that in manufacturir they found the record far bettE Certainly I understand that it is Northern Clubs Federatic Brewery, which has an £18 complex at Dunston-on-Tyr completed in 1980. Perhaps, to the family atmosphere wou appeal to Japanese indus rialists. Six hundred clubs a brewery shareholders, ar another 900 buy Federatic beers. Annual turnover exceec £32 m.
The drivers, members of II GMWU, are on £117.50 a we for all classes of vehicles; the work a 39-hour five-day wee When six drivers needed to recruited recently there were 11 applicants; and the jobs we not even advertised. "Even tl chairman of the board is a unit member," said Ronnie Be "and labour relations are pret good. The fleet is British by cor pany policy and choice; il British Leyland plus a few ERI and Bedfords. We have a d mountable tank system for cor posite loading; our vehicle carry as much as a convention tanker, but more effectively. T1 beer is sealed at the brewery ar not metered through a pump, E a club gets exactly what it asl for. On every barrel a club bu) it gets a £4.50 dividend. But fc the competition offered by th brewery, beer would cost ti public much more."
Ronnie Bell is FTA Norther North-east division vice-chai man (the present chairman Clem Marshall of Bass Charrine ton). However, the Federatic does not use the Association inspection services since it hE its own facilities, but finds th FTA's education services, in pa ticular, of great use. Personn have also attended tachograp courses, and their compulsoi use next year is welcomed. Thmake used is Veeder-Root they are British and an advai tag° is that if a chart is not fitte the stylii are not damaged.
The FTA, he said, is 0leading exponent of training i transport. "There has been fantastic improvement in se vices offered," he said. "Wit men like Gary Turvey, Bob CrrA and Hugh Featherstone it VIE gone from strength to strengtl Thank goodness they are there.
Is the beer good? It has we several exhibition medals and by no means confined to th North. They drink it in the hous of Commons.