MacGregor calms coal hauliers
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THE NATIONAL Coal Board's regular hauliers need fear no reprisals from the NCB when the current miners' strike ends, said Board chairman Ian MacGregor. He gave this reassurance in a week when at least two local authorities have issued threats to hauliers crossing picket lines.
Road Haulage Association director-general Freddie Plaskett wrote to Mr MacGregor after hauliers became worried by growing threats from the National Union of Mineworkers that business would be withheld from hauliers whose vehicles crossed picket lines.
But Mr MacGregor said there would be a continuing place at the NCB for independent hauliers prepared to distribute solid fuel. And it would be for NCB management, and not the NUM, to determine which hauliers would move coal.
This intervention came as two Labour-controlled councils, South Yorkshire County Council and City of Glasgow District Council, threatened to withdraw business from hauliers crossing picket lines.
South Yorkshire has asked hauliers which operate on its behalf to assure them that they will not assist in the movement of coal for the duration of the current dispute.
Glasgow District Council leader Jean McFadden has given notice of a plan to instruct council officers to withdraw contracts from any haulier crossing an NUM picket line.
A motion will be put forward at the earliest council meeting, the first of which was scheduled for Thursday this week, but the general view was that the council was trying to remain "idealogically sound" while not doing anything beyond that.
Very few hauliers do work for the council, even on subcontract to major contractors.
The RHA described the South Yorkshire warning as a "deplorable intrusion" into the dispute by a local authority, and it is seeking legal advice on whether the Glasgow action is illegal. However, RHA Scottish manager Tom Brattin told CM he suspected the Glasgow action was legal as it was up to any haulage customer to decide who his suppliers were.
A senior Conservative councillor in Glasgow, William Aitken, described the proposed I action as "Animal Farm tactics" and an "exceptionally sinister development".
Mr Brattin said he was already trying to have one refrigerated meat haulier's name removed from a "blacking" list being used by NUM pickets at Ravenscraig steel works. He insists that the company in question has never been involved in any solid fuel or iron ore haulage.
• About 80 dockers employed by Rea Bulk Handling at West Float, Birkenhead, refused to load bauxite into vehicles they claimed were blacked for crossing miners' picket lines.
All but about 400 tonnes of the 3,500 tonnes cargo from the 8,887 ton Chinese vessel Hai Feng had been delivered.
The situation was discussed at a meeting between port employers and union leaders. It was agreed that the Hai Feng cargo should be cleared but the employers were given a list of hauliers whose vehicles were alleged had crossed picket lines and would not in future be handled.