Tuesday, June 17, 2008

We won`t back down.

Now,over by `ere in the lands of wild West Wales, the men have had e-fucking-nough.

The greed of a tiny minority of capitalists is forcing thousands out of work, and even out of their homes.
We all work and take a little profit, but those in the oil supply chain are not just taking a profit, they are taking the piss.

So a group of independent truckers have set up pickets at the local oil refineries.
For those of you who might not understand the difference, a blockade "blocks" all movement of traffic, goods and people. (Illegal, and brings huge police response.)

A "Picket", allows the passage of people and goods, but politely and respectfully asks that other working class people do not cross "the line". (Legal, but still attracts police, just in case...)
It`s a British tradition!!

Here`s the latest, (Click for link to original source..Daily Post.)

Up to 70 lorries and their drivers, including from Newtown, parked up outside the Chevron refinery in Pembroke Dock and the Murco refinery in Milford Haven.

Alan Greene, chairman of the Mid and West section of the Road Haulage Association in Wales, predicted picketing would spread across the UK.

He said the message behind the campaign of peaceful picketing is getting through – “fuel taxes in the UK are far too high.”

As a prominent regional spokesman for the fuel protests which brought Britain to a standstill in 2000, he claims the situation for hauliers today is worse.

“The rising cost of petrol is affecting everyone across the world but the UK is being hardest hit as usual,” said Mr Greene.

“No other country in Europe is facing the sort of crippling fuel taxes which Brown has imposed in the UK – it is making the current situation much worse.

“We are being led like lambs to the slaughter. One haulier business a week in the UK is going to the wall at the moment.

“The haulage business I spent my working life building up has been passed over to my sons and I don’t want to see it ruined.

“Every country in Europe subsidies fuel for hauliers, commercial diesel is the equivalent of just 60p a litre in Ireland. In the UK they subsidise f-all.”

He said hauliers from Llandrindod Wells, Newtown, mid Wales, and all over west Wales had answered the call to protest.

“We are convincing tanker drivers not to take to the road.

“This is going to spread to other parts of Wales and right across the UK. The type of price rises we are seeing now nobody can absorb any more.”


The truckers are in the front line, looking straight at the government, who prattle on about "supply and demand", and "free markets", the reality is that they are doing nothing.
Every month this year has seen job losses, with forecasts of hundreds of thousands of redundancies to come.
These guys are not giving in, and with these two West Wales refineries processing over 200,000 barrels per day, this picket is going to hit the UK right between the eyes.

3 comments:

billie said...

good on you! i really have no idea what it's going to take to bring these corporates down. but it's a start.

Paul said...

Sounds like things are getting interesting over there.
Here in the states people who cross picket lines tend to get beat up, but you already know about Mercans.
Our world as we know it is getting torn asunder by gay marraige. Starting unjustified wars and killing innocent people by the hundreds of thousands was not enough to bring out the moral crowd but geez marry a couple of lesbians and the world comes to an end!
Home prices are still plummeting and the 16 acre parcel in the country I've been watching is coming into my price range. :-)
It's got 3 wells (one is artesian)and can produce whatever I need. Heck with civilization!

jmsjoin said...

Good Luck man! I do not believe anything is going to work. This is only one thing that will get much, much worse. Nothing is going to reverse this. If taxes are cut it will just signal the oil profiteers to make more profit. It has been tried here.
bush tried to tell Congress to do what he wants and that is drilling in Alaska's wildlife Reserve which would do nothing and to allow offshore drilling which agaqin would do nothing. Congress wanted to cut tax incentives for oil companies and there were threats that it would again only make prices go up.
So Congress said they want control of the refineries so they can control costs. Hell the Government can't control anything. This is just one mess that will get much worse and I see no answe3rs but chaos!