Janus raises a laugh
Page 26
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE LETTER from Janus (CM, April 13) must have raised a belly-laugh all the way from the quarries and motorways of Britain and other places where tippermen congregate, to the Appian Way or wherever it is that Janus has his being.
The RHA believes and says publicly that haulage rates should, indeed must, rise. We devote a good deal of time and effort to the education of our members' customers in this respect. We would like to be able to recommend to our members the rate they should charge for various operations, but, regrettably, the law as it stands at present denies us this course of action.
The fact is that the CEGB was operating in a haulage market which suffers badly from overcapacity at present. It could therefore pick and choose. Short of an illegal rate-fixing operation, which I am sure Janus was not advocating, even with both his tongues in his cheeks, there was no way round that situation.
But I hope that the CEGB chairman has taken to heart my prediction that this will not always be so, and that prudence therefore dictates a sensible balance in future between road and other forms of transport for coal, bearing in mind the capacity of some of the more old-fashioned transport unions for kamikazetype action in disputes which need not directly concern them. F. J. PLASKETT Director-general Road Haulage Association London SW6
The reasons for the aforesaid merriment, however, are the references to the place of gratitude in road haulage operations coupled with the thought that any words of mine, or indeed of Janus, would be allowed to cloud the commercial judgment of these
tipper operators and coal • hauliers who elected during the coal strike to brave the pickets in the interests of their businesses. He can be sure that the market was charged the rate for the job.
Perhaps I should underline the sentence in the Central Electricity Generating Board's chairman's letter to me which reads "a few hauliers have sought freight rates which we judge unreasonable and we have not used their services."