Panic Petrol Buying

What the tanker drivers earn is not the issue and levelling the squaddies salary as a comparison is so wide of the mark.

Would you fancy being on the forecourt when a tanker driver who is an hour behind takes a short cut hooking up the pipes to offload the fuel? Fancy being on the road when one falls asleep as they try to get home after their last run of the day?

As i have already noted i'm with them all the way. Ordinary workers should kick back to the suits in offices deciding that the way to save money is squeezing more from an already stretched workforce and damning the safety issues.
 
What Martyn says ^ has it down to a tee. This is about corporate management hacking away at standards and cutting back on safety to make a profit.
When a company (e.g. Tesco) with lots of power gets a bid for a contract and says we'll only pay half of that, some company will take it on and the way they make it pay is to cut corners. At some point sometime it's all going to go pear shaped, people will die unless those at the sharp end make a stand.
 
MG TF 135 said:
What the tanker drivers earn is not the issue and levelling the squaddies salary as a comparison is so wide of the mark.
Click to expand...

why - they both do alledgely hazardous jobs , but the forces do a much more dangerous one in much worse conditions for less pay - yes the tanker drivers do a relatively stressful job but thats why their pay is so good - an no one forces them to do it they can as i said earlier always go do something else as i'm sure there won't be a shortage of applicant for the job

MG TF 135 said:
Would you fancy being on the forecourt when a tanker driver who is an hour behind takes a short cut hooking up the pipes to offload the fuel?
Click to expand...

not particularly but if they choose to be irresponsible then they don't deserve the pay - its no different to a tired nurse making a mistake, a cop making a bad call, air traffic control , firemen, tree surgeons loads of examples - but thats life in a responsible job and most people get on with it without ****ing and moaning etc

MG TF 135 said:
Fancy being on the road when one falls asleep as they try to get home after their last run of the day?
Click to expand...

and how does that differ for any other HGV driver - who also work just as long for significantly less pay , or any other tired driver for that matter

MG TF 135 said:
As i have already noted i'm with them all the way. Ordinary workers should kick back to the suits in offices deciding that the way to save money is squeezing more from an already stretched workforce and damning the safety issues.
Click to expand...

and as i have already noted I think they are a punch of overpaid, selfish moaners - don't like the job don't do it - simples. if you want to negotiate with your employers over pay and conditions etc do so, but don't try and hold the nation to ransom, threaten the economic recovery, and screw with the lives of millions of ordinary people and then expect the people who's lives you are threatening to screw up to be sympathetic to your cause
 
Steep said:
What Martyn says ^ has it down to a tee. This is about corporate management hacking away at standards and cutting back on safety to make a profit.
When a company (e.g. Tesco) with lots of power gets a bid for a contract and says we'll only pay half of that, some company will take it on and the way they make it pay is to cut corners. At some point sometime it's all going to go pear shaped, people will die unless those at the sharp end make a stand.
Click to expand...

yes but enforcing the H&S laws is the job of the HSE and they havent said they have a problem with the requirements the employers are making, if they did they would act - QED.

Also i'd pretty much bet that when this is resolved it will be the same T&Cs but with a pay increase (same as last time)
 
Gary said:
you'd have to pay me more than £45k a year to drive around with thousands of litres of flammable liquid a few meters from my backside
Click to expand...


I know of one tanker driver who is on about £70k. But he still went on strike last time.



Kev.
 
big soft moose said:
if you want to negotiate with your employers over pay and conditions etc do so, but don't try and hold the nation to ransom, threaten the economic recovery, and screw with the lives of millions of ordinary people and then expect the people who's lives you are threatening to screw up to be sympathetic to your cause
Click to expand...

:thumbs:
 
£45k :thinking:

It's not really that much when you consider a driver on the London Underground gets £5k more.......
 
Flash In The Pan said:
a driver on the London Underground gets £5k more.......
Click to expand...

really £50k for sitting in the front of a tube train - I shouldnt have listen to my mum when age 5 i told her i wanted to be an engine driver , and she said don't be silly you'll be a manager - here I am age 35 a manager, and on 25k :'(
 
big soft moose said:
really £50k for sitting in the front of a tube train - I shouldnt have listen to my mum when age 5 i told her i wanted to be an engine driver , and she said don't be silly you'll be a manager - here I am age 35 a manager, and on 25k :'(
Click to expand...

Just think, you could have gone down the union route, "worked" your way up through the ranks and now be on £145k like their union boss ;)
 
big soft moose said:
really £50k for sitting in the front of a tube train - I shouldnt have listen to my mum when age 5 i told her i wanted to be an engine driver , and she said don't be silly you'll be a manager - here I am age 35 a manager, and on 25k :'(
Click to expand...

£25k!! ..... Hardly worth getting out of bed for..... :D
 
If we end up with no fuel in the pumps I will not be able to get my son to school (2miles away and I'm disabled) but I will still be getting a phone call from local education demanding I take him to school. I know this is a miner problem but this is my problem non the less lol. As for are they right for wanting better conditions? You tell me anybody who drives for a living who is happy with there working conditions
 
It comes down to money in the end it always does. If the drivers are over worked, then hire more staff, there is always about 50 people waiting for the oppertunity about 10 square miles around the depot... but they probably dont want to pay for more staff.

I ended up having to leave my van driving job because I started at 4.15am & ended up finishing about 8pm every day. I didn't get bonuses, I was on a set rate and theoretically only paid til 2pm. I was on 18k a year and the company kept trying to push more and more on us. I nearly fell asleep on the m3 & eventually shortly after that I collapsed from exhaustion & got rushed to hospital. I then decided that my life was more important than them & I left. I heard shortly after that they got investigated by vosa and were fined 60k for taking the **** with staff. What annoyed me the most was they said "we are so sorry, we didn't realise there was a problem." Yet everyone complained to them every day but they told them to shut up and get on with it. Many left, but were quickly replaced by people from the dole queue, then the new ones left, but I managed to stick it out for a year. to start with the job really was great fun and i did get to finish at around 2pm or even midday if i had a good day, but they just wanted to pile more on us and not take on more staff to help. So yeah, we moaned alright, we were expected to do more work and more hours but they wern't prepared to pay us for it, but none of us went on strike. I was just tired like all the time, ratty, ended up getting into problems with the wife, because I was never around and when i was around I just fell asleep or lost my temper, so in the end, leaving was the best thing I could do.
 
Last edited:
It's all swings and roundabouts :shrug:

I know fuel tanker drivers who are on much much more than that figure, I also know chemical tanker drivers who are on much much less and they don't seem to be bothered but do the same job under pretty similar driving hour restrictions and time constraints.

The army have quite a few drivers who are a capable of shifting fuel around the road network in perfect safety as well as getting it across the world's deserts where Terence and his m8's like to fire pointy things at them.... so, same job with a vastly increased danger level and substantially less money.

I say let them strike though, the country needs a wake up call, the unions need to realise this isn't 1975 any more and the corporate bosses need to start playing on a level playing field with static goal posts!
 
The best way to instigate panic...........

.............is to use the BBC to ask folk not to panic buy!
 
big soft moose said:
really £50k for sitting in the front of a tube train - I shouldnt have listen to my mum when age 5 i told her i wanted to be an engine driver , and she said don't be silly you'll be a manager - here I am age 35 a manager, and on 25k :'(
Click to expand...

It depends what you're managing though, and what your area is like with regards to living costs etc. Where I am from, 25K would certainly earn you you "pretty well off" status, you could hold down a tidy three or four bedroom house and a car no bother at all and still have money left over after necessities. Whereas in the city of London 25K wouldn't get you very far at all; despite that I've still seen job contracts for people who appear to be "managers" in London who are on 18K and less. Personally, I'd be very happy with your 25K, unless you are a senior manager with an inordate amount of stress on your shoulders. I'm on 16K at the moment in a pretty taxing and disorganised job, and while I'd naturally love to have more it's a hell of a lot better than I was being paid a few years ago and it allows me to do what I want to do for the most part... you just have to budget.



digitalfailure said:
It's all swings and roundabouts :shrug:

I know fuel tanker drivers who are on much much more than that figure, I also know chemical tanker drivers who are on much much less and they don't seem to be bothered but do the same job under pretty similar driving hour restrictions and time constraints.

The army have quite a few drivers who are a capable of shifting fuel around the road network in perfect safety as well as getting it across the world's deserts where Terence and his m8's like to fire pointy things at them.... so, same job with a vastly increased danger level and substantially less money.

I say let them strike though, the country needs a wake up call, the unions need to realise this isn't 1975 any more and the corporate bosses need to start playing on a level playing field with static goal posts!
Click to expand...

If people like Steven Hester didn't take home huge bonuses then this country would surely be in better shape, and we wouldn't be so bereft of money to pay those properly who truly deserve it. I don't see why bankers and corporate "high up" execs should take home such large amounts of bonus money. When I go home at the end of the day having fixed a lot of IT problems, I don't get a bonus - I just get my wage, because it's my job.
 
Last edited:
Always makes me laugh when people completely fail to grasp the idea of a strike. The whole idea is to affect peoples everyday activities, that is how you get the issue noticed!!!!
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
Always makes me laugh when people completely fail to grasp the idea of a strike. The whole idea is to affect peoples everyday activities, that is how you get the issue noticed!!!!
Click to expand...

yeah but its not the way to keep people on side, and without popular support a strike is doomed to failure.

if the rank and file motorist was on the tanker drivers side they could vastly disrupt company profits by boycotting certain garages etc without disrupting the lives of thousands of people who depend on their cars
 
Tanker drivers should consider themselves lucky to even have a job. My betting is there is at least 10 other out of work drivers only too willing to every 1 drivers job. They really do want to wake up and realise this. I have yet to hear of any Union leaders going on strike and loosing pay.

Realspeed
 
Last edited:
Well, having read what the union leader has to say and noticing that there's no real substance to anything in his article, I'm now beginning to wonder just how much of a risk to safety these new (imposed) working practices really are...

If I can't get diesel then I suppose I'm just going to have to manage with a higher ratio of the much cheaper vegetable oil in my 4x4:)
 
by contrast i drove past our tiny local village garage here with two pumps and a tiny tank - no shortage and no cars on the forecourt, probably because we're in a rural area so theres fewer idiots to panic - as the strike hasnt started yet any current shortages are caused purely by a higher level of demand
 
Last edited:
Everyone talking it up now, news reporting it, PM says 'take sensible precautions' ... no doubt which way this is heading.
 
MG TF 135 said:
What the tanker drivers earn is not the issue and levelling the squaddies salary as a comparison is so wide of the mark.
Click to expand...

Len Mcluskey in the Guardian
One firm moved to cut the wages of its drivers by £9,000 a year.
Click to expand...

and to be clear thats a cut down to an average of 45k

so if pay isnt an issue - why is the union leader mentioning it in the national press -in an article which is otherwise long on polemic but short on specifics
 
Last edited:
gramps said:
Everyone talking it up now, news reporting it, PM says 'take sensible precautions' ... no doubt which way this is heading.
Click to expand...

yes the PM is suggesting those sensible precautions include storing it in the garage. Which is a stupid (unless you fancy setting the street on fire), and b illegal. He's a halfwit
 
I wonder how it would have all gone were Labour still in charge? Speaking of which The Telegraph had an excellent typo (now fixed) "Ed Milibad" hehe
 
given that unite are their biggest funder chances are they'd have backed the union and tried to force the oil companies to back down , failed and wound up looking stupid

rather like cameron risks backing the company trying to force the union to back down failing and winding up looking stupid

why they can't just all sit down and talk to each other like adults
 
There's nothing wrong with a contingency plan. If I know I have to be somewhere and need fuel to get there and back and fill up early and get a couple of gallons extra is that suddenly 'panic buying'?!

I'm sure the fuel thieves will have a great time nicking fuel from everyone that has brimmed up.
 
I wonder if the Job Centre put an advert up for "Wanted Petrol tanker Driver" Full training given. ADR licence provided for tanks & packages classes. Pay approx £45k per annum. How many applicants would there be? 1,2 possible?

Some how I think they might run short of application forms rather sharpish. Now I'm not suggesting their job is easy, It takes a degree of common sense and knowledge to do the ADR course and Petro Chem course. But its nothing that cant be trained.

If I was that unhappy and tried to hold my employer to ransom I know the outcome, No one is holding a gun to you head son, If the job has not met your expectations your free to leave when ever you wish. I take no glee in that against Fuel drivers, I have had it said to me more than a few times in my 30 years of working. by various employers.
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
Always makes me laugh when people completely fail to grasp the idea of a strike. The whole idea is to affect peoples everyday activities, that is how you get the issue noticed!!!!
Click to expand...

knowing what one is and disagreeing with doing it are slightly different.
 
Last edited:
Idiots get double my wages!!!! And were going to be doing there job for half the money!!
 
I will be topping up mine and my partners car tonight, not because I am panicking but we are both very short on fuel and we have both got driving to do this week. I will do it tonight before bed, the garage near me does get busy an it's a real pain waiting in the queue !
 
big soft moose said:
by contrast i drove past our tiny local village garage here with two pumps and a tiny tank - no shortage and no cars on the forecourt, probably because we're in a rural area so theres fewer idiots to panic - as the strike hasnt started yet any current shortages are caused purely by a higher level of demand
Click to expand...

Last time we had anything like this, our village garage only served account holders (i.e. farmers and other local locals) - seemed fair enough even if it was a bit frustrating for me personally as I get my fuel while out and about on business.

Just driven back from Oxford passing numerous forecourts. All were out of diesel except for two places that had hiked up thier prices to £1.50 a litre and Sainsburies in Swindon that had a queue so bad it was actually preventing shoppers getting near the supermarket.

Tis crazy......
I was supposed to be going back to Oxford tomorrow but I rang my boss and asked if my journey was essential.
I'll admit I didn't give him much of a choice, so I'll be working from home hoping this blows overs before too long.
 
Gregory Hicks said:
Idiots get double my wages!!!! And were going to be doing there job for half the money!!
Click to expand...

I thought your digs and food are paid for though if you choose to live on base or subsidised accommodation is available if you live off base? Not having a go and I may be wrong but for me and I guess many others the mortgage and food shopping are the two largest bills so the net effect may not be so great?
 
I saw a letter today that a tanker driver showed me. From his union. It said that there was a possibility of industrial action. NOT a strike. He even said that he doesn't think a strike will happen.
I guess only time will tell..

Kev.
 
Just been to my local sainsburys garage and they are certainly seeing some panic buying, massive queue back onto the road. Since my OH ran his car down to the last 3 miles he had no choice but to queue! :bonk:
 
Tanker driving was one of the easiest jobs I've ever had,
but that was 20 years ago and they shut the depot, and I (and 2 others) got laid off :()
The money wasn't bad I'll admit, but its no more dangerous than crossing the road if you
"follow the rules" of loading / unloading.

 
On the news tonight my partner and I noticed the newreaders when refering to the Total petrol company as TO TAL. Up this end we have always called it the Total petrol station not To tal. Is it just us :thinking:
 
government will be laughing all the way to the bank with panic buying going on. money in the petrol station is money in the treasury.

Shell garage near me out of normal diesel. car runs nicely on superduper diesel...
 
jonbeeza said:
On the news tonight my partner and I noticed the newreaders when refering to the Total petrol company as TO TAL. Up this end we have always called it the Total petrol station not To tal. Is it just us :thinking:
Click to expand...

Nope! I've notice it too....
 
matty said:
government will be laughing all the way to the bank with panic buying going on. money in the petrol station is money in the treasury.
Click to expand...

Just means they might get a bit of the duty a reporting period earlier due to people buying before they run out ( I have no idea how frequently it has to be paid).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top