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16 June, 2008
A four-day industrial action by 600 contracted tank-truck drivers will end tomorrow morning, 17 June, at 06h00. But ICEM affiliate Unite has said another four-day action could begin on Friday, 20 June, if fair pay awards are not given in bargaining this week.
The strike, which began in the early morning hours of 13 June, is against Royal Dutch Shell and two of its contract haulers, German-based Hoyer UK and J.W. Suckling Transport Ltd., wholly owned by UK’s Harris Holdings.
Unite Assistant General Secretary and negotiator Len McCluskey, while walking picket lines at Shell’s Stanlow refinery in Essex over the weekend, said that mediated talks would resume today with the two companies. The weekend strike has crimped petrol supplies at Shell’s 950 retail stations across the UK, and has had a knock-on effect since drivers delivering fuel for BP, Total, and Esso have refused to cross picket lines at Shell’s depots and terminals.
McCluskey said late last week that the “dispute could have been resolved if Shell had advanced a fraction of the billions of pounds in profit they make every month” to the contract haulers. He said with Shell intervention, the dispute could have been settled “for a sum smaller than the chairman's pay increase last year.”
Unite Joint General Secretary Tony Woodley also said Shell could resolve the dispute if it increased payments to the contract companies. He told the British newspaper the Guardian that the Anglo-Dutch company makes profits of £1.5 million a month, and it would cost £1 million to settle the dispute.
Unite is seeking a minimum gross salary of £36,000 per year, about £2,000 more than the contract drivers’ current gross pay. The drivers work an average 48-hour workweek, including an extra shift added every second week. The contract haulers have offered only a 0.5% wage increase.
Ron Webb, Unite’s National Secretary for Road Transport and the chief negotiator, said a second wave of strikes is scheduled for 20-24 June if negotiations before UK’s Advisory, Conciliation, and Mediation Services (ACAS) beginning today are not successful. Unite has scheduled a mass meeting of drivers, including tank-truck drivers from other petrol and transport companies, for Wednesday, 18 June, in London.
Shell began contracting out its delivery supplies of petrol in the UK in 1992.