[13
SEP 00] FUEL PROTESTS
Lorries Blockade Exhall Petrol Centre
Lorries
are blocking a petrol distribution centre in Exhall as the fuel
crisis starts to bite across the country.
Seven
lorries have barred tankers from leaving the small Murco petrol
distribution centre in Bayton Road.
The
truckers have allowed supplies for emergency services to leave,
but have not permitted any other supplies to be sent out.
Coventry
socialist councillor Rob Windsor (St Michael’s) joined the
drivers this morning to show solidarity with their protest.
He
said the blockade was much smaller than that at the refinery in
Kingsbury, and no police were at the site.
Cllr
Windsor said:
“It’s
hard to see how hard it’s hitting at the moment.
“It
is Blair’s government that have got to negotiate with
them.”
Cllr
Windsor, a former anti-Poll Tax campaigner, said many of the
arguments being used by the government as to why petrol duty
couldn’t be cut immediately were similar used by Thatcher’s
government in the Poll Tax row.
He
said:
“I
cannot accept that you cannot change things, if you look at
the number of changes the government has dropped on us.”
And
he called on other trade unions to take part in the dispute to
show the government that anti-trade union legislation passed in
the 1980s should be reversed.
But
Cllr Windsor said it was vital that supplies for emergency
services be allowed out.
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