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Survival rati

30th December 1977
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

an prosperity

I N contemplating a new

year, reason and ex perience tell me that January 1 is a mere point in the calendar. The ritual celebrations of a new year's eve mark no change in our destinies. Time is impervious to our clamour. And yet, as December ends, there is always a sense of fresh beginnings, of great hopes and, at the same time, an uneasy awareness of dangers ahead.

So my thoughtsabout what 1 978 may hold for the road haulage industry engender both hopes and fears but no certainty of fresh beginnings.

On the hopeful side, the Price Commission's investigation of the road haulage industry provides a rare opportunity to secure recognition of the low price of road haulage services, and of the serious economic plight of this country if my members' revenues continue to be insufficient to finance the replacement of their vehicles. I am sure that if their investigation is conducted impartially and thoroughly these and many other significant points will be established by the Commission's report at the end of May.

Qualifications

I am sure, too, that the Goods Vehicle Operators (Qualifications) Regulations 1977, defective though they are in some respects and modest though their aims may be, will at least start the process by which the special responsibilities and skills of the hire or reward sector of the industry will be recognised and the status of hauliers improved.

The appointment by the Government of a Committee of Inquiry to consider the operators' licensing system. presents an opportunity, which the RNA has promptly seized, to prepare evidence and proposals for the substantial improvement of the system.

The Association has appointed a working party whose principal recommendations have already been pre

pared and whose work is near completion.

The Government can rely upon the Road Haulage Association to produce numerous practical ideas which would not only improve the structure and operation of the system itself, but which would increase the stability and status of the industry arid enhance its contribution to the national economy.

Track costs

The Association will also pursue its detailed arguments with the Government over track costs when the next round of that apparently interminable controversy is resumed.

Next year's representations on this subject will be complicated by the fact that vehicle excise duty will before long have to be computed by reference to numbers of axles and to gross vehicle weight.

We have strong arguments to advance in support of the con tention that heavy goods vehicles do cover their track costs. They will be advanced with vigour despite the knowledge that the Government appears to have insured itself against the loss of the track costs argument by its statements in the White Paper on Transport Policy on lorries' "social costs".

It is admitted that these costs cannot be measured and that "a tax based on them would be no substitute for constructive policies to help people who suffer from the impact of lorries on them and their communities." The White Paper then proceeds blandly to at that the Government. % these unguantifiable cc account in deciding much road taxation sh ceed the costs of roads.

In other words, w success we have in strating that the heavie vehicles cover their tra may be nullified by the lion of additional dutie ting so-called "social c arbitrary duties vvhi neither compensate thi are alleged to suffer thi of lorry movements nor the viability of the railw which will add to the co transport and so to the all goods.

If the Government intend to contain inflat would do well to dism their minds this chii social costs''.

The White Paper oi port Policy provides lit that the Government sensible or bold enc accept the incontroverti for 40 tonnes gross veh They display acute fe environmentalists' oppc heavier vehicles and, di concern about the cone of energy, the Whit, makes no reference to savings and the in efficiency which the ii tion of vehicles of thi would secure. I expect cussions of this subjec EEC Council of Minist year to terminate, as tf in the past, inconcluski with the United Kingd transigence further c ating its EEC partners seems to regard with a of petulance, suspic awe. I hope there w change in that attitu year.

Industrial relation

It is in the held of ir relations, however, tha dustry seems likely perience the most serio difficulties. As the year e RHA, in all areas, is g on the one hand wit claims from trade tly determined to surhe Government's pay es and, on the other th warnings and threats Government whenever loyers appear to waver menuous endeavour to Government's thin red

rial action

• unless wiser counsels • evail — as we enter e industry is confronted distinct possibility of. il action by trade unions Iging sanctions by the lent.

ers are faced, moreover, iice given to their cus:0 pay no more in hau,is than can be justified iximum of 10 per cent e in hauliers' labour

is particular aspect of iculties I have no doubt ie hauliers who may be D settle wage claims at 3 n 10 per cent and who immensurate rate inwill wish to know the which their customers tiled increases in the if their own staffs and, irly in the case of ownoperators, the wages of rers.

ialanced discussion and ement of wage claims is 3reatest importance to ers, employees and nent. These matters incause deep anxiety and :ter conflicts and yet the af some of the part; seem to me to have ed into a sort of childrty game in which you be holding the parcel e music stop& ao much to hope that in icular circumstances of Justry all concerned urgently agree on the ans — the RHA believes rational Statutory Joint Council — of settling r elements of wages and ins whilst leaving subelements to be agreed ly in the light of special :umstances?

-50 kilometre restriction

on movements of non-rigid vehicles exceeding 20 tonnes gross and not fitted With tachographs will have profound effects on the industry. The trade unions appear. to be adamant in their opposition to the use of these instruments and I see no possibility that the Government will succeed in persuading, or even make any very serious attempt to persuade, them to change that policy.

Less work

Clearly, there will be less work carried out by vehicles of this class and increased unemployment among drivers as many operators turn to traffic for carriage over distances within the new limit. This means, in practice, a distance not of 281 miles — delivery points rarely end conveniently at that stage — but of about 250 miles.

Other operators will be obliged to reorganise schedules involving overnight stops short of their vehicles' normal destinations and to seek recoupment of the additional costs they incur. I expect very few operators to resort to double manning as the expensive alternative to the use of a tachograph. As a result of these irrational constraints productivity in the road haulage industry seems likely to decline.

As the industry struggles with these problems next year members will follow with great interest and concern the formulation of proposals for the phased ,implementation by the UK of EEC Regulatrion 543/69 and, in particular, provisions regarding the phased introduction of an eventual eight-hour driving day. When the plans for, and periods of, the phasing have been worked out there will immediately arise again the difficulties of the further reorganisation of schedules, of recouping additional operating costs and of negotiating sporadically with the trade unions throughout the Association's areas.

The complicated gyrations involved in adapting domestic legislation to EEC laws are difficult to follow and many hauliers face the New Year uncertain of the conditions under which they will operate and, consequently, of the basis on which they can prepare quotations for haulage contracts.

One cannot expect hauliers, or any other businessmen, to be disposed to give pedantic attention to legal minutiae and the Association will have to prepare and circulate as soon as possible a clear, definitive statement — probably a series of such statements — on the new rules on drivers' hours.

One needs no crystal ball to make any of these predictions. They are as obvious as their fulfilment is inevitable.

The way I see it

I was asked to state not only what I see ahead but "what I would like to see happening." To put it briefly, I would like to see the Government's acknowledgement of the seriousness of the difficulties in which the haulage industry is now placed, and action on their part to remove some of those difficulties by cutting taxation and refraining from imposing additional duties on vehicles or fuel.

In particular, I want a national Statutory Joint Industrial Council to be set up in order to clear the jungle which has grown and spread so rapidly over the industry's labour rela lions scene. Only by such action on the part of the Government can wage negotiations in this industry be established and conducted on an orderly basis which is fair and equitable to both operators and workpeople.

I also want the Government to be realistic about vehicle taxation and honestly and publicly to admit that increases in the taxation • of goods vehicles inevitably mean increases in the prices of goods.

Perhaps.

Then perhaps we would be spared the irritating spectacle of a Chancellor trying to win popular approval for more taxes on lorries by referring to the nuisance they sometimes cause though not to the indispensability of their services, and by omitting to mention where the eventual burden of such fiscal policies is bound to fall.

In the road haulage industry there are at present few, if any, signs of the prosperity to which all new year messages conventionally •refer. There are some distinct hopes which could be fulfilled in the near future, but there are quite exceptional difficulties ahead.

However, I have faith and confidence in the ability of hauliers, with the help of their Association, to survive and overcome them. In adversity hauliers have always shown great determination and resilience. They will need these qualities in 1978.

A final word which I hope will not be considered inopportune. I would like to see an improvement in the standards of press reports and comments on the events in, and the affairs of, the industry and the Association. Reports in newspapers and the technical press have sometimes been inaccurate or unfair, or both. The press as a whole has great power, of which it is fully aware, but in recent years it does not seem to me to have used it as responsibly or as reasonably as it should.

• G. K. Newman


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