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Union plans tank attack
Page 12
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Tanker drivers campaign for better pay. Guy Sheppard reports.
UNION LEADERS yesterday (Wednesday) began campaigning for a national agreement on pay and conditions on behalf of more than 2,000 oil tanker drivers, claiming their morale has sunk to an all-time low.
The Transport & General Workers Union blames outsourcing deliveries to logistics corn panics for some tanker drivers being paid less than they were 10 years ago and others working for up to six different employers over the same period.
It is calling on employers and the government to discuss pay, pensions, health and safety and training through an industry-wide forum.
Sir Bill Morris, the union's general secretary, says oil companies are making logistics companies tender for contracts every few years: "Forced to cut costs to compete, these companies cut tanker drivers' wages in return and allowed health and safety
provision to deteriorate.- John Roscoe.chair of the union's oil trade delegates. says a consultative ballot among drivers found that 97% of them were in favour of the forum idea: "Top of their list of concerns is final salary pension schemes We have had them in the past and have had them taken away by unscrupulous employers."
However, both the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association are sceptical about establishing national pay bargaining.
Another campaign aim is to reconstitute the Petroleum Industry Training Board .which was wound up in 1991.
The campaign leaflet says: "Under its rules drivers needed three months' training, followed by a test, before they could take a tanker out on the road on their own. But today, drivers are taking out tankers with 44 tonnes of petrol — a 'roaming time boml. as some drivers call them — after few days training."
• See story, below right.