UNITED NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT 91
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"A co-operative for hauliers" (Estd 1991)
COST
Y.117.50 a year.
MEMBERSHIP There are 34 to date with a total of 67 trucks, but the organisers hope that the membership will rocket to about 1,000 within a year. Typical members are small hauliers with up to three trucks.
ORGANISATION There are only two staff; Mike Pickering and Bob Ellard, owner of Bob Ellard International. Until a year ago Pickering ran a haulage company which was "going bankrupt". Pickering says: "Unit 91 is a co-operative, not a trade association. Our aim is to make members self-sufficient and profitable; we are not looking to make a profit ourselves. I am dissatisfied with the likes of the RHA and FTA and don't think they do enough for the small operator."
CONTACT Mike Pickering at Unit 91, 20 Parklands Drive, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 2TB. Phone (0509) 231262.
SERVICES
*Providing members with work. The main aim is to act as a co-operative by winning contracts on behalf of its members. All invoicing is handled via Unit 91. *Debt collecting. Unit 91 is planning a vigilante approach to bad debtors. In March it hopes to impose its first "picket line" outside the premises of a bad debtor; four members will take their tractive units to the debtor's gates for a "peaceful yet disruptive" demonstration.
*There are plans for a large lorry park to be bought as UNIT 91 headquarters. *International advice. Unit 91 overcame a problem on the German/Czechoslovakian border over Christmas when the authorities were demanding to see permits which the drivers had been told were no longer necessary.
*Insurance. Discounts are set up.
• Discounts. These are currently being negotiated, to include trailer rental and tyres.
*Legal advice. UNIT 91 is talking to a solicitor to arrange a deal.
*Book-keeping advice.
*Meetings at truckstops.