Value for money says RHA
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WE MUST all try to give greater value for money in 1980 and 1981 according to John Silbermann, National chairman of the Road Haulage Association.
"I hope this will be borne in mind later this year when the annual negotiations for wage reviews will commence," he said at the RHA Western Area dinner in Bristol.
"The danger is now loud and clear, following the steel strike and all the other industrial. problems with which we are all acquainted."
Mr Silbermann's views have already been met with unfavourable reactions from union leaders (CM April 26) but he is keen to point out that there has been a traumatic economic decline for road hauliers this winter.
"There has to be an end to an automatic uplift in pay unless it is earned — and that applies both to employees and proprietors."
Mr Silbermann also hit out at the "social costs" which lorries incur.
"We object most strongly to the theory that heavier taxes paid by lorry operators compensate in some way for the so called social costs. We do not agree that lorries incur social costs, and in any case the taxing of lorries in no way reduces such costs, nor the alleged damage that is claimed to be caused by them."
It compensates nobody, and reduces nothing environmentally he claimed.