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Tanker unions call for 9% pay boost
Page 7
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UNION LEADERS representing thousands of oil tanker drivers are demanding an across-the-board 9% increase in basic pay combined with a 'portable' pension scheme.
The claim follows an 18-month campaign by theTransport & General Workers Union to improve tanker drivers' pay and conditions.
Ron Webb,T& G national secretary for road transport, explains that the campaign objective of national pay bargaining for the sector is still being pursued even though employers have rejected the idea (CM 10 February).
"We are running out of time and things have to move much, much faster," he warns. "Other wise there will be major problems."
The union argues that drivers' pay and conditions have been steadily eroded over the past 20 years as the oil companies have contracted out their distribution.
The portable pension scheme is designed to offer tanker drivers better protection when contracts change hands. Although the 9% increase would only apply to existing pay, the T&G eventually wants to harmonise drivers' salaries throughout the sector. Webb reports that pay currently varies between £18,000 and £29,000 a year.
However, Peter Lanier, MD of JVV Suckling, which employs 200 oil tanker drivers, suggests that wage harmonisation would actually be extremely difficult to negotiate.
"I would assume there is something like 200 employers in this sector," he points out. "I am not being facetious, but how do we get them all represented?"