Professional Recovery 333

MYOPINION
Fred Henderson
Well said
Richard!
I don’t always see eye to eye with a lot of people and I suppose they would
say the same about me, but I am always keen to give credit where credit is
due, and I was more than impressed with what Richard Goddard had to say
in the last issue of Professional Recovery titled: “London Has Fallen”.
For a long time now I have wondered
how some of the operators, certainly
in the centre of the city, manage to
function at all, never mind the punitive
remuneration. It is further damning
evidence that so many leading companies
are no longer in the industry. We know,
countrywide, that many people are giving
up but it is often the case of a poor
location and very little work. But in London,
I would have thought the playing field was
going to be about the same for everyone.
Although I have to keep reminding myself
that some operators seem to do alright and
better than others even doing £46 jobs and
as long as this situation prevails I can’t see
how we will ever get a substantial increase.
It seems that for the last 10 years at least,
we have all been on a race to the bottom
and it is difficult to know what pressure
could be exerted to get the appropriate
remuneration in place.
I remember 30 years ago a lot of
operators went on strike, so to speak, and
refused to work for the RAC but the timing
was bad and at that time the rates were
such a big issue so all that happened was
that the RAC appointed new operators
overnight and left the strikers to rot!
What would happen if that scenario was
repeated now I am not sure; no-one wants
to put their head above the parapet, press
the start pistol and take any risks but the
pressure on rates is getting worse by the
month. Call Assist’s recent reduction of
daily parking from £20 to £16 is another
hard to swallow situation but while I
understand why Ben Johnson has taken
such a step, it is not a good way to treat
a work-force. He could probably have
obtained the same result money wise by
paying his control room staff 25p an hour
less and see what sort of reaction that got.
I always think it is difficult to make ends
meet if you are doing just club work, you
16 PROFESSIONAL RECOVERY MAGAZINE
need other paying customers and, if you
are lucky, a good Police contract. I also
think there is perhaps something in doing
club work if you are a small family business;
in other words, the owner does the jobs,
but you need the right location and just the
right amount of chimney pots.
Trying to get anything changed in this
industry seems to be like ‘pulling eye
teeth’. For 30 years people have been
trying to get flashing red lights. How can
something so simple and primitive take so
many man hours over 30 years and achieve
absolutely nothing. The country went to
war in Iraq with one ’phone call but can’t
sort red lights out with probably half a
million. It is, therefore, hard to see how
the low remuneration stalemate can ever
be resolved, as every operator I know will
still do loss making jobs, some more often
than others work providers also need to
wise up and respond not only to the traffic
in London but in many other pinch points.
Look no further than any motorway after
lunch on a Friday, just slow moving car
parks. Only when jobs can’t be deployed
will the ‘shit hit the fan’.
One day something will happen but I
fear it won’t be in my lifetime. I would like
to think that people who matter will read
Richard’s article and respond but I fear
that like a lot of other things it will just
wind up in the waste paper bin. He also
needs support having what appears to
be a dickhead for a Mayor which makes a
mockery of TFL.
Fred Henderson
Retired operator
16 Fred Henderson.indd 1 12/11/2020 16:15