ARC bids for peace following attacks
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By Juliet Parish • ARC South Wales is trying to make peace with 60 striking owner-drivers, some of whom are being blamed for a terror campaign against a local haulier who has been sending trucks through their picket lines.
Attacks on Mid Glamorganbased Cadwallader Transport Services have allegedly included shots fired at its depot near Pontypridd, and £6,000 worth of dery being emptied from a mobile fuelling unit.
This week the ARC subsidiary wrote to the picketers offering to negotiate over its plans to introduce rates which would cost them several thousand pounds a year. And it says that pending an agreement with the 27 contract and 33 hired drivers, the old rates will be reinstated (CM 14-20 Jan).
"As a responsible company we had to take action to defuse the situation which was getting out of hand because of a few hotheads," says ARC — the last straw was a stone thrown through the windscreen of a Cadwallader truck just down the road from its Vaynor quarry, near a school. "It was not only endangering the driver's life but also the children," it adds.
The driver was unhurt and Cadwallader has reported this incident to the police, as well as attacks in which 13 of its trucks' radiators were punctured, and a driver was hit on the head with a stone when he got out of his truck to remove sharp objects from the road at the Penderyn quarry picket line.
Cadwallader, has not been put off by the assaults, but is taking "extra precautions".