Employee buyout for ICI tanker drivers?
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• IC1's long-distance tanker drivers at Haverton Hill, near Billingham, and at Sevemside, near Gloucester, have been offered an employee buyout by the giant chemicals group. More than 100 jobs are at stake as ICI reviews ways of improving what it believes is an "uncompetitive" own-account fleet. The two tanker depots handle mainly agricultural fertilisers and associated products.
A similar review at ICI's Runcorn truck depot has decided in favour of keeping the fleet in-house.
Four options are open to the tanker fleets: an employee buyout, a management buyout, using owner-drivers, or contracting out to independent hauliers and distribution companies. The directors of the ICI Chemical and Polymers Group, which controls the Haverton Hill and Sevemside depots, favour either a management buyout or contracting out to third-party hauliers, but talks are continuing and no decision has yet been made.
ICI remains adamant that the tanker fleet must move out of own-account control to bring costs into line with those of outside contractors and the company's main competitors — but it stresses that no enforced redundancies are expected from drivers or workshop staff.
ICI farmed out its tanker fleet at Wilton several years ago, and the move at Haverton Hill and Sevemside seems to be following the same pattern. The company expects to announce a decision within the next three months.
The Transport and General Workers Union says that it is unhappy with the company's plans to move the fleet out of ICI control.