Tarmac calls m strikers to pay up
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• Derbyshire tippermen who went on strike at Tarmac quarries last October have been told to pay the company £500 apiece and to sign an agreement promising that they will not take any further action.
Tarmac Quarry Products has written to the solicitor of the National Hauliers Association — which represented many of the tipper operators during the strike — demanding the money as compensation for the cost of the injunction it took out against the NHA in October (CM 18-24 Oct 1990) which ended the strike.
Former NHA general-secretary Malcolm White is one of 19 individuals named in the letter from Tarmac's solicitor, Wragge & Co of Birmingham.
Tarmac says its legal costs amount to £45,000 or more, and that the £500 it is demanding from the 19 hauliers and NHA officials would meet only a proportion of this cost.
Tarmac's letter is addressed to "Malcolm White and others" from "Tarmac Quarry Products and another". It does not mention the NHA as an organisation, although the association has been accepted as a legitimate trade union by the Government's Trade Union Certification Officer. If the 19 pay up and agree to take no further action "the present proceedings will be stayed", says the letter.
The court injunction won by Tarmac last October is still in force; it is understood that the NHA's solicitor is planning to meet the 19 named individuals next month to decide on a response to Tarmac's demands.
In its letter Tarmac concedes that the individuals named have abided by the terms of the court order and have not taken strike action since the acrimonious dispute over rates, which spread to 12 quarries owned by Tarmac, and others run by RMC, McAlpine, Tilcon and Steetley.
Before the court hearing, Tarmac wrote to hauliers saying that it was seeking an injunction to stop "unlawful acts being committed...at or near our premises...and for interfering with our contracts, business, and for attempting to interfere with the contracts of employment of third parties". The dispute was launched following a meeting of 350 hauliers at Buxton football ground, It began in six quarries — three Tarmac, two RMC and one Steetley — and centred on the tippermen's demand for a 20% rate increase.
At the time Tarmac and RMC offered to compensate operators for the rise in diesel caused by the Gulf crisis, but hauliers rejected this as an increase of just 0.5p per tonne/mile. Some RMC and Tilcon quarries eventually conceded rate increases — a 5% offer at Tilcon's Ballidon site won a vote to return to work.
The NHA ordered its Tarmac members back to work after the injunction was granted, although hauliers at a number of quarries continued to take sporadic action for a few days longer.
NBA officials are now wary of making public statements until they take legal advice.
As CM went to press Tarmac would only comment: "We will come back to you if we have anything useful to say."
Tarmac's solicitor justifies the claim against the 19 hauliers with the statement: "Our clients have used the time since the order was made to begin the extensive task of assessing the loss suffered by them as a consequence of the action which caused the application to court to be made.
"This loss is of course substantial and far reaching ... by way of further indication, some of the fixed costs alone are likely to exceed £45,000.
"In addition, substantial costs have also been incurred in making the original application and subsequently," says the solicitor's statement.