Calm down, dear: the petrol strike is off.. for the time being!

The tanker drivers strike has been postponed for the time being. Patronising Ministers filled the TV screen with fatuous advice about filling our petrol tanks which naturally led to panic buying, and to stockpile with jerry cans in our garages. How daft can you get? Small wonder that politicians are so universally despised when they talk to us a if we were all kids, dishing out condescending claptrap.

What they have not explained is what the issues are; they probably think that we are too thick to understand.

From what I can devil out, it’s not about money. Drivers are pretty well paid, between £35,000 and £45,000 a year, or about twice the average earnings.  They can also knock up quite a bit of overtime at £45 an hour.

It’s mainly about conditions.

Over the years the big oil companies have stopped running tankers and have contracted-out deliveries to haulage firms. BP, for example, uses 300 contractors.

A problem for drivers is that when a contract changes the employer changes, with all sorts of implications for e.g. pensions. The Union leader cited cases where a driver could have 6 different employers in 10 years, and thus 6 different pension pots.

The contractors try to squeeze wages .e.g. a cut of £9,000 when a contract is renewed – or so the Union says.

More worrying is the accusation that the hauliers are pressing for faster turn-round and more deliveries, which bearing in mind what the tankers are carrying is a cause for public concern.

And there is general  dissatisfaction with overall health and safety standards; the big storage depot explosion a few years ago was attributed to the proliferation of contractors so that no-one was really in charge.

All these issues would seem to be negotiable, but I suspect that part of the problem is that the Union boss wants to put a bit of stick about.