'ACT NOW ON DEMURRAGE' CALL
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THE RHA must not lose sight of its major target during the campaign against the Transport Bill, Warned the national chairman, Mr. P. H. R. Turner, and the director-general, Mr. G. K. Newman, at a meeting in Sheffield last week. Over 200 Yorkshiremen packed into the hall to hear about the new licensing proposals and Prices and Incomes Board report.
Mr. Turner said they were going to spotlight the fact that industry would be deprived of their traditional freedom of choice and that costs would inevitably rise as a result of the latest imposition of road haulage charges and fees for abnormal loads. The Bill, said Mr. Turner, would eliminate competition from important sectors of trade and industry, making customers entirely dependent upon British Rail and implying that they did not know their own businesses. "I would have thought this is probably one of the worst aspects of the Bill," he said. "It replaces competition by coersion and provides for the confiscation of road haulage business but not for compensation."
With regard to the new tax, Mr. Turner felt it had been designed to make road haulage more costly and less competitive, to penalize efficient road haulage and featherbed the railways. A rise in road haulage cost must increase the cost of all goods. "This is wholly inconsistent with the controls that the Government will exert as a result of the decision to devalue the pound," he continued.
With regard to other points in the Bill, Mr. Turner said that the RHA had not yet formulated a policy on the provision that trade unions and trade associations in the industry, chief of police and certain local authorities could object to an application for a quality licence. One thought was that the union could object where a haulier was not employing entirely union labour and trade associations could do similarly.
With regard to the PIB report, the national chairman said he had written to all members suggesting that they should go to their customers to negotiate a rates increase and take the opportunity of the backing that was implicite in the report to say something firm about the question of demurrage.
Mr. Newman urged members to take a rational attitude towards the situation.
A sustained and sensible attack could emasculate some of the more objectionable parts of the Bill. Industrial strikes or other punitive action could only antagonize the public at a time when hauliers needed to win its support and he asked all members to write to their MPs and local newspapers and urge their employees to do so. Head Office had formed a campaign working party and appointed a campaign manager.
During question time, Mr. Turner said since some hauliers had increased their charges in 1965 and some in 1966 there was no datum line for calculating a general increase, but each member should negotiate a rate based on his awn castings. Mr. E. Shaw thought that hauliers must learn to live with the Bill as it was sure to become law and that he could see many hidden advantages in it. He thought it would only increase costs by three per cent. Mr. Turner disagreed with this figure and said that costs for abnormal loads, could be increased by several hundred per cent.