Thread: Rationing threat as police prepare to get tough with strikin

From The TimesJune 14, 2008

Rationing threat as police prepare to get tough with striking drivers

Video at the link

Striking tanker drivers have threatened to call another four-day stoppage next week if no agreement is reached in the pay dispute that has threatened fuel supplies across the country.

The move comes as the Government instructed police forces to break up any picket lines that threatened to prevent tankers from leaving or entering fuel depots.

Emergency powers to order petrol rationing will come into force on Monday if the strike threatens to grow out of control. Any mass show of secondary picketing at refineries and distribution depots this weekend will disrupt plans by the industry to keep petrol flowing at the pumps. Fuel shortages will also be inevitable if farmers and hauliers join illicit protests.

Slow convoys of lorries will stage demonstrations today near refineries at Stanlow, Cheshire, and Fawley, near Southampton, over the high duty on fuel.

The Times has learnt that army personnel are not on standby to assist in a fuel crisis and have not been trained to load and unload the latest generation of fuel tankers. Ministers are banking on pledges from oil industry chiefs that there are sufficient fuel stocks across the country to last until the end of the strike at 6am on Tuesday, provided that motorists stick to normal buying habits. Nevertheless, officials at the Department for Business will monitor events over the weekend.

People appeared yesterday to be acting responsibly. Sales were 20 per cent higher than normal for a Friday and there were some queues at petrol stations, particularly in rural areas, but there was no evidence of panic-buying. Industry experts have said, however, that there could be local problems with some pumps running dry in parts of the Midlands and the North West, where other tanker drivers refused to cross picket lines or joined their colleagues in illegal action.

Shell has admitted that its network of service stations, one in ten of all petrol stations in Britain, will be affected by the strike and that some will run dry.

Emergency powers will be activated only if there is a sharp escalation in action that prevents tankers from maintaining normal deliveries.

The pay dispute involves 641 drivers who distribute fuel for Shell and are employed by Hoyer UK and Suckling Transport. The Unite union is seeking a 13 per cent pay increase and has rejected an offer of 7.3 per cent, backdated to January 1 this year, which would bring average wages to £39,000, and a further 6 per cent from January 1 next year, which would boost pay to an average £41,500. Shell drivers earn an average of £34,000, which includes one extra overtime shift a fortnight.

Negotiators from both sides last night were in touch by telephone seeking to reach a deal. Unite has served warning that it will call another strike from Friday next week if no agreement is reached.

Bernie Holloway, director of Hoyer, said: “We want to resume further talks and are therefore extremely disappointed that the union plans to strike again so quickly.â€

Call me crazy, but I bought about a year's worth of food from

www.nitro-pak.com

I was only going to buy a few items for reserve until on their website and others like it they said there was a industry wide food shortage and a major delay in shipment.

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