Fuel strike: Shell tanker driver dispute settled
The strike between Shell’s tanker drivers has been settled bringing hopes of a swift end to the fuel drought faced by thousands of motorists over the past four days.
Agreement was reached after talks between the drivers’ union, Unite and Shell’s suppliers, Hoyer UK and Suckling Transport.
A spokesman for the oil company said all its forecourts were working normally after drivers resumed work at 6am after a four-day strike.
With the strike having ended, Shell spent the day making deliveries to 400 sites across the country, bringing relief to garages which had been starved of supplies.
Despite the return to work, the Government said that 588 forecourts sold out of diesel, petrol or both at some point during the day.
The peace deal will lift fears of a far more parlous supply situation next weekend, when it was feared that the number of forecourts starved of fuel would dwarf that of the past few days.
This was because an overtime ban by the 641 drivers would have prevented stock being brought up to the level needed to handle another four-day walk out.
In addition motorists, who had heeded advice to buy only the fuel that they needed, could well have found themselves running on near empty tanks by the end of the week.
Even the first strike led to severe shortages in several parts of the country, notably the south west.
As the strike unfolded the drought spread across the country, though at its worst only around eight per cent of forecourts suffered real supply problems.
The swift settlement meant that the Government only had to bring in limited measures to deal with the fuel shortages.
This entailed relaxing competition law to allow fuel companies to compare stocks, enabling them to bring in supplies where fuel was short.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2146803/Fuel-strike-Shell-tanker-driver-dispute-settled.html
