Many cooks spoil the transport gravy
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ERE IS never an ideal time to think the institutions and reisentative organisations of a je and relatively long estabIed industry. When things are ng well and most transport orators are prosperous, no a sees any point in criticising iresentative bodies. When the Jntry is in the mire of the rst slump for nearly 50 years bureaucrats running transrt organisations may be more icerned with personal survithan with listening to those jing reform.
n broad terms, what is true of nsport applies to the whole of tish industry. When the .ecomy has cruised along at a -nfortable pace, trade associans and trade unions have an more concerned with the xt rate increase and the new y claim than with the likely
n of events in five or ten 3rs' time.
lepresentative bodies genery change their approach when hr membership becomes rese. Is it fair to blame the organijogs who speak for us if we ive everything to them, asming that they know best and it the pilots in charge are good vigators?
Falk to any trade union or de association official and u are likely to learn that only a y proportion of members are :ively interested in policy makj. Indeed, most organisations )ort that only a few people in oh locality play any significant e at all, even in humdrum Mers, attendance at meetings, 3anising social events and so Most of us are card-holders, :ewarm observers of matters en as too complex for pernal intervention.
Talking recently to Bill Morris, itional secretary of the IWU's passenger services Dup, I suggested that not ough trade unionists were in'ested in studying manage
tnt His reply was on ) following lines: "Many, of ir members study trade ionism and the social philos ophy that underlies trade unions. I do not consider that bus workers need management skills to form views about the organisation of their industry. you only have to look at the state of Britain today to realise that the management skills commanded by companies large and small have not prevented the country from landing in the most almighty economic mess."
Without wholly accepting the view that trade unionists do not need management insight, what Bill Morris had to say about the failure of management to prevent the disastrous slump seems true enough. It is no less true of the United States, the country that invented "scientific management". How many of their Harvard Business School graduates predicted the creation of the OPEC oil cartel, partly responsible for the economic disasters of the western industrialised countries?
One conclusion to be drawn is that managers, the people running the economy, have looked to today and tomorrow, but not to next year or five years or more hence. Trade unions deserve to be criticised for being equally concerned with shortterm considerations and benefits.
Bringing this down to the transport sphere, two points seem to be worth making. The first is that transport is almost unique in being dependent or the level of general economic activity for its own prosperity. Unlike manufacturing industry where sensible tycoons can encourage designers and inventors to produce goods likely to be readily saleable at home or abroad, transport, in all modes, is stuck with a lot of expensive hardware --vehicles, ships,' aircraft and ancillary equipment — which must be worked hard for several more years in order to pay off the original capital costs.
Who can wonder that transport morale is brittle? There is not much that can be done by road transport operators to cheapen their product unless someone comes up with engines consuming much cheaper fuel, and even if that happened who could afford to write-off existing power-plants?
And any new transport concept like the Channel Bridge or freight-carrying airships would not find it easy to get public or private finance and such schemes, in any event, would not improve transport economies for several years.
The second point is the most significant in terms of transport morale. There is every prospect that the world will need more, not less, transport for the foreseeable future, once the slump has been overcome. The problem lies in how best to provide the necessary transport facilities to service standards made ever more exacting by environmental and consumer interests.
This raises the role of our representative bodies into sharp focus. Are there too many of them? Is there a strong argument for what may be termed a transport "lobby" for all modes? What effect would this have on existing representative transport bodies? Would it make any diference to Government responses to transport problems?
Looking at this from the narrow view of road transport operators, it seems fair to imagine how a transport minister sees this special interest group. Today, all ministers, regardless of party, must give audience to representative organisations when policy matters affecting them are being prepared. Mr Norman Fowler and his top advisers must be well acquainted with leaders of the TGWU, URTU, and the NUR as with delegations from the RHA and FTA. Doubtless, at intervals, other "lobbies" from the British Road Federation and from transport's consumer interests get a chance to say their party piece to the Minister.
But, often, the submissions made by the road transport industry are not in full harmony. The employers' view may be at variance with the trade union views. The views of transport operators and transport buyers may not coincide. How much simpler it would be if road transport could present a single voice, a consensus view, to the Minister. What a lot of separate meetings would be avoided.
From the Government standpoint transport is a dog's dinner because it is not seen as a single industry. We have road transport, roads, railways and licensing matters coming under the Department of Transport.
Move to Air Transport and the epartment of Transport is not othered: civil aviation and lipping come under the Deartment of Trade. Postal ser ces, including parcels, closely ffect surface transport but the ost Office reports to the Depart lent of Industry, along with ritish Aerospace, British hipbuilders, and British Steel orporation. Civil aerospace, ao, comes under the Departlent of Industry who have a fin er in Maritime Research, the ast Kilbridge Engineering aboratory, the National Physi 31 Laboratory, the National Rearch Development Coroporaon and the cryptically named Concorde and Nationalisation ompensation Division".
The members of Covent Garen Market Authority are ap ointed not by the Transport linister but by the Minister for griculture, Fisheries and Food.
In my next series of articles I ropose to consider whether the rganisations and institutions 3t up to serve the interests of ansport operators have beme excessively "fat" in an adlinistrative sense. Are the ser ices provided meeting the eeds of members? Are links ■ ith Government, here and in
ie EEC, effective? To what )(tent is income keeping pace ,ith expenditure? Is everything ossible being done to :reamline administration?
In the past year the Governlent has abolished consider Ole numbers of quangos — Drnmittees set up to study part': _liar subjects ostensibly to help lape Government policies. Is it 'holly fanciful to think that lany members of transport or
anisations would like to see a milar probe carried out to test le cost-effectiveness of bodies laintained by the annual sub-.--riptions of members?
Of course, it would be stupid D pre-judge this kind of queson. My experience of both -ade associations and trade nions is that the people in barge are fully conscious of the eed for economy in administraon, just as they are aware of the eed at all times for acceptable rye's of service to the memership. At the same time, in an onomic crisis which may not e easily ended it is good public rlations for organisations to say ankly how they see the short id medium-term future.
There may be a case for more ffective collaboration between rganisations sharing broadly le same goals. Is it possible iat there is a duplication of functions between organisations?
Let us be really fanciful for a . moment and imagine that a few hundred active members of all transport organisations met in conference to consider the problems of their industry. Suppose that, after much speech-making, those present decided that they had more interests in common, as transport-people, than their association with particular transport modes might suggest. And that a consensus view was taken to move all the headquarters officials to a single building in London, or wherever, in order to further the common interests of transport.
You don't have to reflect for long to agree that such a concept is truly fanciful. There would be every sort of objection raised if the proposal was confined to management or employer oriented bodies, let alone the transport trade unions. But, as someone said many years ago, ideas have legs. If the memberships of transport organisations declared that the idea made sense, at a time when everyone is facing grave difficulties, when it is quite crucial for the transport voice to be heard throughout the nation and in Whitehall and Parliament, would the objections from the status quo merchants be quite so virulent?
Let us consider some likely trade union attitudes. The TUC has a transport committee bringing together the railway unions, the road transport people, etc. The TUC, after the war, sent a delegation to Germany to set up a trade union organisation which is very much simpler than the British system and which works much better because there are fewer unions. Demarcation disputes rarely if ever happen in Germany.
On the railways, the National Union of Railwaymen has been trying to merge with the Loco drivers and the TSSA white-collar union for almost a century, without success. Early progress on this front seems unlikely.
Take road haulage: the TGWU's road transport interests are engaged in a. number of different trade groups. Commercial services are not the only group with lorry drivers in membership. Food, drink and tobacco and other sections have membership. But though there have been no moves that I know of to bring all TGWU lorry driver members under a single trade group it would be logical for this to happen.
So much is happening so quickly on the industrial front that ideas put on ice years ago are now being looked at again. In the textile industry, economic adversity has brought both sides of the industry together in a Federation with a single spokesman.
The same could easily happen with British Railways and the rail unions. The meeting of the TGWU and RHA in an effort to concert policies may lead to a wholly new approach: adversity makes strange bedfellows!
Any scheme providing machinery to project the transport "voice' would have to be credible both to Government and to public opinion. To talk about one trade union, one trade association, one professional body to be achieved in one fell swoop would be too simplistic an approach, though there ma be much merit in the idea.
On the trade union front, I ca envisage immense problems i bringing together, say, air pilot with lorry drivers, merchar marine officers with fleet eng, neers, rail staff with distributiol staff. Each section has a differen pay structure and very differer status ideas and aspirations. YE all these varied interests are con sidered by the Internationa Transport Workers' Federatior at least in part.
On the employer/manage ment front you have bodies Ilk the CBI, with a transport corn mittee representing all modes c transport and the British lnsti tute of Management, with an ac tive specialist distribution group Another useful organ isatiol with an active membership ii transport and distribution is th, Institute of Management Ser vice.
In the training/education fieli • we have the Chartered Institut, of Transport, the Institute o Traffic Administration and a hos of less prestigious bodies, fron Group Training Associations b private training companies.
Is it wholly a waste of time tr consider bringing these dispe rate, separately managed am separately financed bodies to gether, at least in some form o federal organisation, at best ii what might be called the Trans port Front, or Lobby, or Voice?
The case for a considered, ho pefully consensus voice, for thi claims of transport — what i does and can do for the commu nity, why it is vital for th, nation's economic future, it contribution to the export in dustries seems to me to be sell evident.
I think Commercial Moto, which once played a major rol, in launching the Institute e Road Transport Engineers would make transport history i its readers backed the idea of • new powerful Transport Voice But a single voice for road trans port would not suffice today: th, other modes must add thei weight if people and govern ment are to take transpor seriously.
Many things divide transpor people in each mode and be tween each mode. But when al transport people suffer the trau mas of a shrinking economy sa vation may hinge on a commo approach to misfortune and common determination to irr press Parliament and peopl w;th transport's significance i aiding recovery and building better future.