Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
ROBERTS
THE UNION of Clerical Administrative and Supervisory Employees (UCASE)will this week begin negotiations with three local petroleum-marketing companies.
The union will commence negotiations for an increase from the marketing companies on behalf of the petroleum haulage contractors.
Haulage contractors have come under pressure recently by petroleum tanker drivers who are threatening to take industrial action unless they also get an increase.
Danny Roberts, president of UCASE, said that after a meeting with the haulage contractors over the weekend, the union was mandated to begin negotiations with three marketing companies.
The three are Texaco, the Petroleum Company of Jamaica (PetCom) and Petrojam.
"We are already in touch with Petcom and have advanced contracts with them," he told The Gleaner on Monday.
Mr. Roberts said the union would have been setting meetings with the other two companies yesterday.
In the meantime, Mr. Roberts said that the union was appealing to tanker drivers to hold off on the industrial action until negotiations are completed.
EXTENSION OF TIME
"I am making an appeal to the tanker drivers to give us a further extension of time so that we can hopefully conclude with two or three of the marketing companies," he said.
"Once we are settled with two or three of the other marketing companies, if the other marketing companies failed to respond to our request to commence negotiations for new rates in a revised contract, they will be isolated," he said.
Mr. Roberts argued that petroleum haulage contractors have not had an increase from the marketing companies for the last 10 years.
"They have had astronomical increases including from tanker drivers without any increases on their own," he said.
