Update From Simon Weller on DBS 2012 Pay Award

4 Jul 2012

The Lead Officer of the DBS TCCC Simon Weller reports to the ASLEF Membership on DB Schenker with regards to pay and other issues.

I’d like to explain where your ASLEF Company Council is with both the pay negotiations and the current rest day working agreement on DBS.

Firstly, I’d like to introduce myself; I’m Simon Weller the ASLEF National Organiser; I have recently taken over as the lead officer of the drivers’ Company Council on DBS.

We have received a number of offers on pay over several meetings and the last formal offer from the company was a straight, no strings, 3.1%; we have rejected this as we do not feel it meets your aspirations.  Particularly in the context of the pay increase received over the last two years (as you know 2010 was a pay freeze and 2011 was 2.5%).

We will have further talks with the company on the 10th July to try to resolve this issue.   I am keen to secure the best possible increase for our members and have informed the company that we will be reporting to the ASLEF Executive Committee in their July session, one way or another.

We have also expressed our grave concerns over the continuing deliberate abuse of diagramming and rostering and the abrogation of drivers’ terms and conditions – we have made it very clear that this situation cannot continue.  As such we have said we are not prepared to sanction rest day working beyond July unless a satisfactory resolution to these problems is reached.

Rest day working is completely voluntary and we agree to periods of it to facilitate training programs and ensure that there are enough drivers employed and trained to carry out the necessary duties.  We are increasingly finding this is not the case.  We do not intend to allow the company to continue to undermine our salaries, agreements and see further downward pressure on driver numbers through extended periods of rest day working because of DBS’s failure to resource drivers and implement proper training regimes; particularly route learning.

I hope to resolve these matters without recourse to any action and will, of course, keep you informed of developments.