Nothing in it for me so why would I? Good luck to em but they don’t need my help 
caledoniandream:
these peole are not much better than Idi Amin, Ghana Pirates, or any other dictator!
Really? I mean, really? What a pathetic thing to say.
caledoniandream:
Would you agree if the Milkman kidnapped your wife and kids to get his bill paid??
Again, really?
I despair. Are we really the bunch of selfish ■■■■■ we appear to be from the cross section of drivers on this forum?
I’m 33 and have (hopefully) a long career in front of me. I’m wondering if I should bother or go for a career change because terms and conditions obviously won’t get better as long as the, ‘I’m alright Jack’ culture prevails.
I might consider it if they were to do 2 hours overtime and give it to me to cover my days pay.
[
quote]del949 wrote:
oh I think you can Spanky, you seem to believe a lot of other rubbishsuch as
?
a humerous reponse to your post, as signalled by the addition of a smiley 
If the tanker drivers were really striking because of the safety and job training being corroded as they claim they may have more support, but I think you’ll find that’s just a camouflage for demanding more money for things like unsociable shift patterns, shift patterns like plenty of other drivers work to in fact 
MikeCunn:
I despair. Are we really the bunch of selfish [zb] we appear to be from the cross section of drivers on this forum?
unfortunately we are,and its not just drivers its the human race in general.
MikeCunn:
I despair. Are we really the bunch of selfish [zb] we appear to be from the cross section of drivers on this forum?
I’m 33 and have (hopefully) a long career in front of me. I’m wondering if I should bother or go for a career change because terms and conditions obviously won’t get better as long as the, ‘I’m alright Jack’ culture prevails.
If you’re only staying in the hope that some kind of collective bargaining is going to generally improve pay and conditions for drivers in the future, then you should definitely go right now.
Carryfast:
kr79:
If I’m unhappy with my works terms and conditions I speak to my boss. If we don’t reach a compromise it’s up to me to look for something else.
I’m lucky in having worked for firms where you can speak to the management directly though.I think you’d have grown up in much harder times than you could ever dream of if everyone had thought like you since the 1920’s and the economy would probably have been bankrupt by 1970.
I’m just speaking from personal experince of my working life. I can see how unions should work as a collective force. What sticks in my throat about unions and socialists is they preach solidarity and it’s all about the workers but scargil livingstone kinnock and Blair made a nice few quid out of socialism.
darren1000:
Who would be perpared to do a mass sick day to support the tanker drivers?
yep why not
This tanker lot remind me of the printers in the eighties. They were in the top 3% of earners in this country. They werent hard working, far from it, bone idle in fact, and they werent even well skilled. They just happened to be GIVEN the job by the system of who knows who.
There`s not many of these plump positions left now. Well, the tube drivers I suppose.
Anyway, when these lucky people have been made redundant, as surely they will, as sure as night follows day, they will be worth (depending on location), exactly £7-£9 per hour. Same as the rest of us.
quote from a tanker driver from the bbc news website
And the 49-year-old said there were important differences between tanker drivers and other HGV drivers.
“I’m like a brain surgeon consultant in my line of work,” he said. "People want to know that each truck is driven by a highly-qualified professional driver.
"We can’t park and leave our vehicles under ADR [European agreement concerning the carriage of dangerous goods by road] regulations as we must always be in view of our vehicles to be able to react in case of emergencies.
“So we don’t technically ever have a break away from our job. We sign declarations certifying that fuel is safe… so we carry all that responsibility with us all the time.”
so they think theyre far superior to us mere mortals who on average do twice the hours they do for half the pay and technically they dont have a break so they run bent aswell.now to my knowledge theres alot of very intelligent hgv drivers out there that could quite easily pass all the adr exams to become a tanker driver but they choose not to cuz the job doesnt appeal to them.this strike in my opinion is about money the tanker drivers want more for doing less yes they work unsociable hours but the hours over a week equate to less than 40 in most cases,as for h&s 1 they have an adr and all the saftey traning that goes with it 2 as far as i know they cant tip at a garage without being supervised by the forecourt manager and in some cases where its a small station they close it for refuelling,i knew someone who did tip on his own and got sacked 3 the use of agency drivers i cant see any tanker fuel company using an unqualified driver, and even a qualified driver would have an induction process ive delivered to refinery,s with non adr material and theres an hours induction before i get in,i cant see em just chucking the keys at an agency driver and saying its that one over there mate with shell written on it now crack on.in my opinion tanker drivers have scored a massive home goal and with comments like the one above why should i support or respect them
I saw that pompous tanker driver on the news
but the hours over a week equate to less than 40 in most cases
I don’t think that is true, can you supply evidence please.
as far as training is concerned it’s interesting to note that the army claims that it will take 8 days to train their non adr drivers up to standard… but the gov’t also today announced that it was seeking to reduce that traing period. it would appear from that, that the gov’t are actually doing what the tanker drivers are claiming the employers are trying to do, i.e. reduce safety measures.
I do agree that the tanker driver quoted above sounds a complete ■■■ and does nothing for their claims.
caledoniandream:
Would you agree if the Milkman kidnapped your wife and kids to get his bill paid??
Why not, they are his kids 
Fuse. I don’t know why they just don’t let the firemen drive the tankers 
kr79:
Carryfast:
kr79:
If I’m unhappy with my works terms and conditions I speak to my boss. If we don’t reach a compromise it’s up to me to look for something else.
I’m lucky in having worked for firms where you can speak to the management directly though.I think you’d have grown up in much harder times than you could ever dream of if everyone had thought like you since the 1920’s and the economy would probably have been bankrupt by 1970.
I’m just speaking from personal experince of my working life. I can see how unions should work as a collective force. What sticks in my throat about unions and socialists is they preach solidarity and it’s all about the workers but scargil livingstone kinnock and Blair made a nice few quid out of socialism.
Too much stereotyping.Blair was no different to Callaghan or Thatcher where the issue of British workers and the British unions were concerned.The Chinese Communists have been the main beneficiary of their policies not British workers and certainly Blair got rich before,during and after his time as the leader of ‘New Labour’.
Scargill actually fought against a policy of using cheap imports at the expense of British produced coal and there’s no reason to suggest that wasn’t also his view in regards to other domestic industries and there’s no way that he ever got as rich during his time as an NUM member as Blair or Thatcher and her cronies did during before,during or after their time in government.So the jury is still out in Scargill’s case.
Is there a question concerning as to wether union leaders should be payed any better than the average wages as those who they represent 
.Yes.It’s an issue that should have been sorted years ago from the very start of the union movement.The pay of any part time or full time union rep or leader should never exceed that of the average wage of those who they represent. 
However as I’ve said the whole economy would be bankrupt by now if workers had allowed that issue to cloud their general convictions and unity over the years in dealing with the real issue of maintaining and improving living standards and keeping incomes high enough,to keep spending power high enough,to keep buying domestically produced products.
All of which is contrary to the moneterist global free market policies followed by Callaghan,Blair,and Thatcher etc.
As for ‘Socialism’.Stalin and Hitler both described themselves as Socialists.Whereas there’s been plenty of trade union members over the years,like myself,who discounted the bs idea in favour of just concentrating on the main issues.
The pay of any part time or full time union rep or leader should never exceed that of the average wage of those who they represent.
.
the follow through to that argument is that it should also apply to the country’s leaders.
Sounds great in theory but a bit of thought makes you realise all you would get is either “average” leaders or megalomaniacs.
Anyone with any ambition or ability would simply go elsewhere to earn good money and wether you like it, or even admit it, you need someone a bit more than average to lead.
del949:
I do agree that the tanker driver quoted above sounds a complete ■■■ and does nothing for their claims.
Maybe it’s just the union running scared of the Sun readers so trying to overdo the safety bs case again instead of just telling it like it is .
They were given guarantees concerning the continuation of previous long established working practices and terms and conditions and surely it’s the defence of those that’s it’s mainly all about considering that everything seemed to run smooth enough before all the subbing out and obvious resulting pressures concerning undercutting as in the rest of the industry and if the Sun readers don’t like it tough.
del949:
The pay of any part time or full time union rep or leader should never exceed that of the average wage of those who they represent.
.
the follow through to that argument is that it should also apply to the country’s leaders.
Sounds great in theory but a bit of thought makes you realise all you would get is either “average” leaders or megalomaniacs.
Anyone with any ambition or ability would simply go elsewhere to earn good money and wether you like it, or even admit it, you need someone a bit more than average to lead.
I’m not so sure del.Surely the job just needs a lot of understanding of the lessons of history which probably teaches anyone more about the job than anything else and where we’ve come from and where we need to be going.While at the end of the day a union is only as strong as it’s membership and,just like all government decision making should ultimately be left to the electorate,the same applies in the case of union policies and direction.
In which case why the big deal about leadership pay and what’s really wrong with a union leader earning the same as the average members.I can only see as it would create more benefits in goodwill and morale amongst the membership than drawbacks .
Maybe it would even convince those like kr79 to join up. 
I was a member of the t&g years ago as where I worked briefly automatically joined you. That place realy put me off unions as no real grievances got sorted and it was jobs for the boys for the union rep and his mates.
Carl:
quote from a tanker driver from the bbc news website
And the 49-year-old said there were important differences between tanker drivers and other HGV drivers.“I’m like a brain surgeon consultant in my line of work,” he said. "People want to know that each truck is driven by a highly-qualified professional driver.
Funny enough there was a program on the miners strike a while back and one of the miners used pretty much the exact same quote.
His argument was that he should be paid as much as the brain surgeon as the surgeon couldn’t do his work without the power the coal provided.
del949:
but the hours over a week equate to less than 40 in most cases
I don’t think that is true, can you supply evidence please.
as far as training is concerned it’s interesting to note that the army claims that it will take 8 days to train their non adr drivers up to standard… but the gov’t also today announced that it was seeking to reduce that traing period. it would appear from that, that the gov’t are actually doing what the tanker drivers are claiming the employers are trying to do, i.e. reduce safety measures.
I do agree that the tanker driver quoted above sounds a complete ■■■ and does nothing for their claims.
Training or familierisation?
A lot of the drivers will be trained already the ADR courses are the exact same as the civvy street one.
Mine was run by a civvy firm at RAF St Athan back in about '96
We also did extensive training I don’t know what the tanker drivers do but we had tests on types of fire extinguishers
The RAF fire service actually set fire to some fuel and we had a go at putting it out.
This was done yearly and we were all tanker qualified refueling aircraft and sites
I read earlier the Hoyer had 80 RAF drivers over for famillierisation.
I assume this is showing them the differences between an Oshcosh and a Scania or MAN (which they also use anyway)
They probably don’t need the 8 days training due to already being tanker drivers
I assume there’s not a lot of difference from picking fuel up at a Bulk fuel instilation and a refinery.
Neither is there much difference between sticking a wagon onto a forecourt abnd discharging and manouvering next to a Chinook with it’s rotors running and hooking up to that and pumping fuel into it.
Good move for a lot of the lads handy to have your name known by management when you come out and are looking for a job.