RHA stirs up a hornet's nest
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A HORNETS' NEST of indignation has been stirred up by a Road Haulage Association offer to take over the national distribution of international road haulage permits. Neither trade unions nor the Freight Transport Association likes the idea, reports ALAN MILLAR.
The offer arose at a meeting between the RHA and Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley last year, but only became public on Friday last week after the Department of Transport put the idea to the civil service unions.
According to RHA directorgeneral Freddie Plaskett, the RHA could take over the distribution, but not allocation, of permits from the DTp's International Road Freight Office in Newcastle Upon Tyne and could undertake this at substantially lower cost than applies at present.
It would guarantee that the RHA, which wants to close its Newcastle office later this year and move to Darlington, could maintain a presence in the city, and would present Mr Ridley with an opportunity to privatise another area of his Department's actitivy.
Mr Plaskett said the plans, which are at a very early stage, would leave the RHA free to take on the minimum number of staff it believed were needed to run the service, and they would be subject to RHA, rather than civil service salary levels and conditions of employment.
He did not comment on whether employees would be permitted to join a union, but said: "We would not accept any form of closed shop."
But the RHA, which was one of the most vociferous opponents of the now dead Government plan to privatise heavy goods vehicle test stations, does not intend to mount a major campaign to take over the permit distribution service. "We are not a bit fussed about it," Mr Plaskett said.
The Civil and Public Servants Association and the Society of Civil and Public Servants reacted swiftly to condemn any suggestion of privatisation, saying they are "very surprised and very concerned" by the suggestion.
"This allocation, issue and control of permits is a very sensitive matter and we think it is quite wrong that an organisation like the RHA, with a vested in terest in acting only on behalf of its members, should be considered an appropriate body for the issue and control of permits," they said.
CPSA spokesman Terry Ainsworth, on behalf of the 31 civil servants engaged on the work, said they were alarmed that Mr Ridley appeared to be taking the RHA's offer seriously. The unions want MPs and hauliers to convince the DTp to drop the idea.
Transport operators are worried that the RHA could appear to be suspected of favouring operators with permit allocations, even although the proposal would exclude allocation from the take-over bid. There is a real fear that the market could be controlled and rates kept at a level favourable to hauliers in such an environment.
The ETA said it accepted that the RHA did not want to be associated with the allocation of permits, but a spokesman said it would be difficult for the industry always to believe that there was no such involvement.
Unlike the RHA, which altered its views recently to favour control of the international market, the ETA is totally opposed to the long term existence of permits as it believes they prevent total freedom of trade. Mr Ridley also wants them to be abolished and is known to have little sympathy with the RHA's wish to retain them.