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Agreement staves off tanker strike

 

Tom Hawkins
Saturday 14 April 2012 01:31 BST
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A deal has been reached that could avert the threat of a strike by fuel tanker drivers.

The Government welcomed proposals, drawn up last night, aimed at resolving the dispute.

Trade union Unite held talks last week with officials from six distribution companies under the chairmanship of the conciliation service Acas. The details of the agreement will remain confidential until the parties involved choose to disclose them.

Peter Harwood, Acas’s chief conciliator, said: “We are pleased to announce that a set of proposals have been reached.”

Unite had earlier been given an extension to a deadline for declaring strikes in the fuel tanker drivers dispute so that peace talks could continue.

Under employment law, the union should have made a decision by yesterday afternoon on whether to call its 2,000 members in the industry out on strike after they voted last month for industrial action.

The dispute has been brewing for more than a year but flared up last month when Unite announced that workers in five firms had voted to strike.

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