Opportunity would be a fine thing
Page 49
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I am sure that your Management Matters feature last week, "A challenge to the gaffers", will have raised an echo in many readers' minds. The present wage and price freeze is presumably intended as an attempt to break the 'never-ending inflationary spiral — but I can't see it having any long-term effect: as soon as the freeze comes off, wages and prices will start galloping to get back where they would have been without the freeze.
It would be something like a miracle to see a real break in the spiral, but from a haulage • contractor's viewpoint I would be glad to see a chance to catch up with even the last couple of " We have been caught by the freeze in trying to get a rates increase, and so many of us have lost out yet again in our attempt to recover from the effects of the recession.
Service industries like road transport are at the enc of the line when it comes to raising prices, and all too often they find they have an inadequate economic lever when faced by stubborn customers. This can all be traced back to the Prices and Incomes Board's original clamp-down on the R HA announcing rates increases. There may have been some merit in their arguments, but they have unbalanced the market forces by their interference. Shall we ever retrieve the situation now?
SMALL HAULIER
Kant