Dump the pumps web site steals industry's thunder
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• by Sally Nash A web site calling for a "dump the pump" campaign has stolen the thunder from the Road Haulage Association, which was attacked this week for postponing its plans for direct action.
Since the web site, www.boycott -thepumps.com, was set up on 2 June visitor numbers have topped 100,000 and the organisers say they have been "overwhelmed" by public and media attention, Mark Dundon, one of the organisers, hopes that the first boycott, planned for 1 August, will be supported by more than 100,000 people as word spreads. He also warns of more militant action, perhaps in the form of blockading petrol stations and major roads in cities to cause gridlocks.
"You have to understand that many of our supporters are very annoyed with the government and are sick of being ripped off." says Dundon. "We can only take so much. If this happened in other countries they would have taken a stance long ago."
The campaign has already won support from many hauliers, he adds.
The United Road Transport Union, the Hauliers and Farmers Alliance and others have hit out at the RHA for calling off the "friendly day of action" it had planned for 10 July. The RHA says it decided to postpone the demo because it wants to see what Treasury ministers have to offer at a meeting scheduled for either 24 or 25 July.
RHA national chairman John Bridge admits that the "dump the pumps" campaign has catapulted fuel costs to the top of the political agenda, but he feels that the road transport industry has its own case to pursue.
"Ours is a completely separate issue," he claims. "The one we are fighting is the differential on diesel duty."
But this latest U-turn from the RHA flies in the face of its call to arms two weeks ago, when it said the time was right to abandon talks and "take action". And the climbdown has angered many haulage groups that are planning direct action over the next few months.
The Hauliers and Farmers Alliance. which is still pressing ahead with its week of action in September, is unimpressed by the RHA's decision. Chairman Len Johnson says: "They [the MI should have gone ahead—the timing would have been perfect. I'm sure the government is going to try to buy them off."
Frank Stears of Trans-Action says: "Now is the time to demonstrate because the fuel issue is in all the papers. The trouble with talks is that we'll still be talking two years down the line and in the meantime hauliers are going bankrupt."
URTU general-secretary David Higginbottom has also criticised the RHA for calling off the protest. "It strikes me that the RHA board doesn't want to do anything that might upset anybody," he says. "But a demonstration now would have got a lot of media attention—talking is not going to get anything changed."