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After PM report NCL staff told 'important moves afoot'
Page 52
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• In a message to the staff of National Carriers Ltd, following references by the Prices and Incomes Board to the losses of the former railway "smalls" organization, Mr Harry Kinsey, managing director, says that such observations inevitably prompt a spate of speculation. "Longer-term plans for NCL as part of the NFC parcels and small freight business are being developed," he writes. "Proposals, which include area managers being responsible for both BRSP and NCL depots, have been presented to the trade unions concerned; staff have been told that important moves are afoot.... As soon as anything firm is decided, then management will inform everybody clearly and properly." • Mr Kinsey said there had never been any doubt in his mind that the survival of NCL depended on real progress being made each year in cutting down the big inherited deficit "The Government's temporary subsidy isn't charity; it is a hard-headed investment, and our survival depends on our justifying it.
"We have not done so badly since the days when we were said to be losing £26m in a year. In 1968 we cut the loss to £20m; 1969 showed a further reduction of E4m; the 1970 provisional results give us confidence to think in terms of a single figure of millions for 1971." Added Mr Kinsey: "Losses don't melt. They have to be chiselled out, which is what we have been doing. More business, better productivity, better service, pleased customers, new techniques—these are the loss-reducers which become the profit-makers."
The February issue of NCL's news magazine contained a selection of letters from staff replying to the management's challenge: "If it were your business how
would you run it?" A recurring theme in E number of letters was that NCL shoulc become more road oriented. One writer calling for NCL standards to be brought tit to those of competitors, said transport in th( West Midlands was competitively so fierc( and so unprincipled that there was no roorr for the faint-hearted.
An NCL credit controller from Walsal wrote: "Business has to be pirated frorr others who already have it and to get it yot have to join the league of bribery anc corruption. . . Let's face it—our bigges competitor is the slick, privately ownec operator, who can make on-the-spoi decisions as to how much he is prepared tc put out (in whatever guise) as ar inducement to secure a specific flow o merchandise, and we have to do the same . . A ball pen or calendar is a poor too against a case of Scotch, a cheque, a nee Mini, use of a holiday bungalow, and thest are the weapons our armoury lacks Therefore equip the troops to fight or be killed."