It is hard to imagine anyone as different from the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association leader, Mr Brendan Ogle, as the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, Mr Gerry McMahon. Mr McMahon lacks Mr Ogle's messianic air and verbal gymnastic skills but the IRHA could prove a far more formidable opponent for the social partners than the ILDA - should it care to flex its muscle.
For one thing, more than 90 per cent of all freight moves by road. For another, every commuter in the State is exercised over the high cost of fuel oil, including the tax element, while relatively few people were worked up by the highly technical debate between the ILDA and Iarnrod Eireann.
In June 1998 the IRHA showed what it could do when it closed down Dublin port in a dispute about low delivery charges. That led to a 7 per cent increase and a report on the development of the industry.
While the study looked at many issues it made no reference to fuel prices. The closest it came to addressing this central issue was a proposal that the IRHA had "an active role to play in cost reduction". Mr McMahon could argue this is what he and his 1,200 members are doing now.
The IRHA has done nothing more than threaten direct action for lower duty on fuel oils - something the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has been seeking assiduously from the Government since May. The IRHA engages in regular lobbying of the Government itself, but is not one of the social partners.
Although the association contains a few large companies with fleets of up to 70 trucks, Mr McMahon estimates half his membership are small traders with between one and three trucks. Most of the 2,800 hauliers outside the IRHA are even smaller. Altogether there are 4,000 licensed operators with 24,000 vehicles. Haulage is the small business sector par excellence.
Most hauliers outside the IRHA are likely to take their lead from the association, as they did when Dublin port was blockaded. Former president Mr John Guilfoyle said in a recent background paper that most operators are too small to negotiate effectively on issues such as rates or discuss "complex legal matters". But he added, ominously, that hauliers' "bitter memories from the Dublin port dispute will, I feel, unite and strengthen their resolve to see it to the bitter end if they decide on militant action" to reduce taxes.
According to the IRHA, hauliers contribute around £1 billion a year to the Exchequer, or a third of their total turnover. Fuel prices are rising so fast that Mr McMahon says the association's decision to demand a 35 per cent reduction in duty this week, compared with 20 per cent last week, simply reflects the rise in prices during the same period.
This is equivalent to a reduction of 6.5p a litre. However, the Department of Finance says that any reduction of more than 6p per litre would breach EU tax harmonisation laws and constitute unfair competition. It would also cost the Exchequer £111 million a year in lost revenue.
Like the ILDA, the hauliers have no legal protection if they engage in direct action. But an intelligently applied "go-slow" could cause massive disruption without leaving them open to prosecution for obstruction. A more powerful sanction is probably the £300 a day hauliers would be losing for every truck not being worked. Like the social partners, the IRHA could find there are no easy answers to inflation.