Rates appeal
Page 9
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SCOTTISH hauliers last week appealed to their customers to increase rates to cover recent rises in dery prices.
The Road Haulage Association's Scottish district placed an advertisement in the classified advertising section of The Glasgow Herald on Monday last week, pointing out that haulage costs have increased by two per cent as a result of recent changes in dery prices.
"Of necessity, members of this association will be advising their customers individually of the effects of these increases relating to their own contractors. The increased cost will reflect an increase in haulage rates," it said.
District manager Tom Brattin told CM that this was the first such advertisement to be placed in a Scottish newspaper since the Iranian revolution pushed up fuel prices in 1979.
He said his members felt that their customers were not playing fair, particularly as they operated a 90-day credit period as a norm. That eroded any profit margin in the haulage rates.
"Our members cannot go on absorbing these increases in cost," he added.
Mr Brattin said that in general terms, many rates being paid barely covered'fuel, wages and excise duty, and left no profit margin. He added that, if nothing else, the advertisement might strengthen RHA members' resolve to stand together and insist on increased rates.
But in Scotland, part of the resident operators' problem is that English hauliers are prepared to carry backloads south at a marginal rate.
The advertisement appeared inside the newspaper, alongside notification of Glasgow University extra mural evening classes, and small advertisements for picture framing, computer dating, and hypnotherapy.
Mr Brattin said that the temptation to place a harder hitting advertisement had to be tempered by RHA reluctance to offend fair trading rules by mentioning specific rates.
The format of the advertisement had been approved some years ago by former RHA director-general, the late George Newman.