"Not so Poor a Company"

The acquisition of Brogan Holdings by DCC is expected to boost earnings immediately, and the stock bounced as high as €19.83 at one point, drifting back to close up 35 cent on the day at €19.60
The board said it has decided to increase the interim dividend by 5 per cent to 23.74 cent per share to its shareholders. This dividend will be paid on to shareholders this year.
Articles from www.irishtimes.com 2009

At the start of the year the work force was forced in to a Pay Freeze within DCC-GB Oils.The Management quoted a down turn in predicated sales as one of the main reasons ? But after six months it has returned a operating profit at its energy division (yes thats the one that we work for), the company’s biggest business it,rose 22.9 per cent to €25.2 million.

And this is the same company that have just spent !!!
Shell Austria Oil Distribution €18m (SDA)
Bayford UK €24.7M
Brogan Holdings Ltd UK €47.2M (Cash)
That is a total of EUR89.9 million in less than a year yes EUR89.9 million.

Then there is the savings that has been made by all the pay offs lets say 20+ Drivers paid off in the UK over the last 18 months say £50.000 a driver saving about one million pound.
Update around the UK and I think it's nearer to 100 yes thats 100 drivers redundant, left or sacked within the last 13 months. Apparently the cost of running 1 truck is averaged at £60,000 per year so I make that a £6,000,000 saving. Will we see any of it? Dare they say no again? We'll see.

So with this buy out of Brogens their will be more pay offs in England and Scotland regardless of whats happens at the next Union meeting with the company. And if we get a pay award or not the axe will fall on the work force.

So i say its about time for all of us to stand up and be counted get your mates in to the Union and tell all the Brogen drivers about this Blog so that you the driver will have a voice to the Company and the Union.

Unite and Gb oils

A meeting took place today (9th Sept) between the company and a select number of national stewards headed up by Ron Webb and Matt Draper of Unite. The dialogue was both meaningful and constructive and a joint statement from the company and the union, outlining what took place, will be issued within the next few days.

Union

GB Oils Limited
Tryst House
Glenbervie Business Park
Larbert
FK5 4RB



Dear Ms Foote

I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated 10th August the contents of which I considerably note.

Your assertion that Mr Pollock has been attempting to find agreement on a date with me is wholly inaccurate. I wrote several months ago seeking a meeting with Mr Pollock and members of your management team to enter into discussions on the back of your Company’s arbitrary decision without proper consultation with the Union to impose a wage freeze on my members.

Mr Pollock’s response to my formal request to meet with me and my Union’s elected representatives was that he was only prepared to meet me and to meet me informally. This proposal was unacceptable then as it is now. It is important that we have a formal meeting (not informal) and that a number of key Union elected representatives are in place. It was the intention to provide myself and six key elected Union representatives for the purpose of this meeting. Since then, the Company has provided both confusion and frustration around the Union’s formal request. In reference to the enclosed letter that you have provided me with a copy of which I received a copy of initially from my elected representatives, it is I believe a blatant attempt to both intimidate and frighten my members when they have a perfect legal right to ballot legally of which at that time if their industrial action ballot was to take industrial action, you know only too well they would be provided with a 12 week legal protection against dismissal from their employment and their contract.


Your correspondence failed to advise your employees of their legal entitlement with regard to this once their legal ballot was completed within the terms of the law. I would advise you your letter is currently receiving the consideration of this Union’s solicitors of which then I will then be writing to you again.

To this end, and yet again, I state quite clearly and categorically that this Union and its elected representatives are perfectly happy and content to meet representatives of your Company in order for us to try and find a way forward that has ultimately been our intention from day one of this matter and continues to be.

However, if you continue to deploy tactics that do no more than frustrate your employees, my members, in conjunction with the Union, then it will then be inevitable, in my view, that we will continue to pursue as we are currently our members’ legal right to ballot on the question of industrial action.

In conclusion, I would therefore be obliged if you would consider this letter as acceptance of meeting Mr Pollock for a formal meeting including that of six elected shop stewards who I will advise you of in due course.

I would therefore propose the date of the 9th September for us to meet.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

Ron Webb
National Secretary, Transport

DCC plans new bumper bonus plan for executives

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/dcc-plans-new-bumper-bonus-plan-for-executives-1782398.html

DCC in the black

Dear Colleague have a look at this
cut and paste
www.herald.ie/national-news/dcc-in-black-1827290.html

DCC has said trading profit for its first quarter to the end of June was ahead of what it had expected, though still down compared with the same period last year.

The company, which is involved in healthcare, energy, food and IT, issued a trading update ahead of its AGM today.

DCC left its outlook for the full financial year unchanged, saying it expected adjusted earnings per share to be "modestly behind to broadly in line" with last year. It said operating profits would be 5pc to 10pc down from a year earlier due to the weakness of sterling.
Article by The Herald ie

The full letter ? not part of one

GB Oils Limited
Tryst House
Glenbervie Business Park
Larbert FK5 4RB

Dear Sir

Re Wage Freeze 2009

Further to my fairly recent correspondence to you, a National Conference of GB Oil Representatives was held last week at the Central Office of Unite, London.

The outcome of the position taken by representatives across the country is that we would now be earnestly balloting on the subject of industrial action arising out of your arbitrary decision to impose a wage freeze on our members. The view that has continued within the Unite Union is that your company is aptly placed to make some contribution on wages to its workforce. You have continued to refuse to meet senior representatives of the Unite Union formally, both to carry out a proper and professional discussions in order for us to find a satisfactory way forward.

Indeed it is the clear view and understanding of this Union that you continue to ignore the concerns of your workforce and quite frankly your attitude to the Unions is dismissive to say the least. Unfortunately, that has left this Union and its representatives with no alternative and at the conference held last week, delegates unanimously voted to ballot for industrial action. As you will appreciate it is still even at this stage my intention to try and avert such difficulties between us and would again for the record advocate and request an urgent meeting involving myself, one or two key officers and some key representatives in order to carry out proper discussions in connection with wage freezes. In the event that you either dismiss this letter off hand or indeed refuse what we consider to be this reasonable request. We will be in the next few weeks issuing you with notice letters under the 1978 Employment Protection Act. If this is necessary you can be assured that this Union will fully fulfil its legal obligations in this regard. Again this letter does not serve at this stage 7 days’ notice but is to advise you of the above recent mandate from our representatives, your employee representatives which quite clearly now is moving towards preparations of these industrial action ballots. In conclusion I would leave with a strong belief that I was taken back by the strength and force of feeling on this particular issue.

Yours sincerely
National Secretary

Anonymous Member

To the disgruntled member.

It causes great concern to us as Stewards if a member is not receiving information and is unhappy with the service we provide. You have however been invited to contact Fraser Ross who would put you in touch with your local Steward but have declined to do that. To say that you have no idea what's happening is not entirely true as you are accessing this site and as such will no doubt have read what is going on. There are a tiny minority of drivers that feed information to management and try to disrupt union activities by spreading propaganda wherever they can, they are well known to us and are used to great effect. I can only assume that as you have not contacted Fraser you must be one of those aforementioned drivers! However, if you are a genuinely unhappy member who needs assistance please contact Fraser who will be happy to put you in touch with either your local Steward, myself or another Senior Steward or indeed an Officer of the Union.

A Senior Steward

DCC PLANS NEW BUMPER BONUS PLAN

DCC is planning to introduce a new bonus scheme for its executives.Under the proposals tommy breen (ceo) could get 120% of his salary in stock options. The recently published Annual report shows that DCC executives were entitled to between 60% to 100% as an annual bonus (subject to hitting targets!!!)
Under the new proposals breen who got a 50% rise last year and tucked away a tidt 1.53m euro, he also was granted opitions worth 272.000euro. He also received a whopping 642.000 euro bonus despite shares plummeting 30% in the financial year. So we can now see why DCC need every penny and every cent.

Union

Important update

The purpose the latest meeting of the DCC Coordinating Committee in London on 28th July 2009 was to discuss the preparation of a legal ballot for industrial action.

The stewards have been consulting the members nationwide over a number of weeks on their initial views regarding industrial action against the company and it was clear from today's meeting that we do indeed have a mandate for such action. It is also clear that a huge majority of members are very unhappy at the company's decision to announce a pay freeze for this year despite a massive jump in operating profits (100.7 million) and at their refusal to even talk to the Union on the question of national bargaining and parity on pay. Or indeed any subject. Moreover, the refusal of the company to allow senior Stewards paid time off to attend national meetings demonstrates the contempt with which the company view your Union.

There is no doubt that DCC have made clear their intentions to maximise profits at the expense of it's workforce.

Your senior Steward will be contacting you shortly regarding arrangements for the ballot.

Initially the (National Secretary For Transport) will be writing to the company giving them around 4 weeks to respond and an option to meet with the Union including a select committee of senior Stewards to try and reslove this unfortunate situation.

Union

I was also told today (24th July) that all Union posters have been removed but as the previous Shop Stewards posting says, they have proved to be very effective!
So just to re-cap. GB Oils have set up a communications forum presumably trying to undermine our role as stewards, refused to meet or even talk to us, refused to recognise us as a body, refused to pay us for meetings and now remove any Union communications from the notice boards!! Does anyone detect any paranoia here?
What I detect is a total disregard for anything that we as Union Stewards stand for. GB Oils are treating all of us with utter contempt and clearly the sooner EVERYONE stands up to be counted and takes them on the better. Support your stewards or I honestly think you will all live to regret it. Shop Steward

Union

Got back to the yard tonight to be told to take down ALL the union posters - told it was a company wide decision - anyone else been asked to do the same? Another example where the lack of a national and local agreement is hitting us. Still I think the posters have obviously done their job very well!
Shop Steward.

dcc

Did you know that our CE (tommy breen) for 2009 had a pay raise of 35.000 euros? From 514.000euros in 2008 to 677.000 euros in 2009.

His Bonus went up from 411.000 euros to 642.000 euros an increase of 231.000 euros?

And is Pension contribution went up from 149.000 euros to 189.000 euros an increase of 40.000 euros not to bad for hard times? In total he got a increase from 1.096.000 to a total of 1.533.000 euros is pay is reviewed on the 1st January 2009

emo Southern Ireland

emo drivers in Southern Ireland. It now appears that they will have to accept around a 5% pay cut, however there will now been no compulsory redundancies there will be some voluntary redundancies but these will be on an enhanced package.
A spokeswoman from SIPTU said the main problem is that there are to many owner drivers in Southern Ireland that would take up the slack left behind.

Union

Hi all, the company has announced in the last week Seven redundancies in the north west, 3 in ellesmere port, 2 in Trafford park, 2 in the stoke depot.
They are looking for voluntary first, and if they don’t get them they are going off the GB oils/ CPL matrix, after seeing this matrix for the first time last week I just hope none us drivers will ever go off sick, get disciplined, have a incident or accident, have penalty points, and only have a class 2 license, don’t have less than ten years service, and don’t ever upset the company, or you will be rewarded with your p45.
( I know I should of got a job in the office )

Redundency notices

The 3 drivers at Bangor depot North Wales will soon be moving to Llanduno where there are 4 drivers. All 7 have been served with redundency notices and have been told that 2 will be chosen using the gb oils matrix system should no volunteers come forward.

Redundency notices

Thursday 4th June ... It has been anounced that there will be 1 redundancy at Immingham Depot. Volunteers first, then the GB Oils matrix system will be used to determine the employee who goes. Most drivers are annoyed as the company set on 3 drivers in November 2008!!!!!!

emo Southern Ireland

Hi all, the drivers who work for EMO in Southern Ireland have been in touch with me regarding the pay freeze. They were at the LRC in Dublin yesterday along with the management. After four hours of talks they did not reach an agreement with the management on what way to progress. The company is issuing redundancie notices to 12 drivers on Monday morning because of the failure to agree. The criteria will be last in first out. THE DRIVERS ARE NOT IN THE UNITE UNION BUT BELONG TO SIPTU (http://www.siptu.ie/) As far as i would be concerned it is not the union i have to fear but the management. This appears to hold up what we have been saying all along, this company is looking to take the unions on.

emo South of Ireland

Emo drivers in the South of Ireland are at the Labour Relations Court in Dublin tomorrow with management.The company wants them to take one months unpaid leave in September and a pay cut of 10%.The drivers have offered to take three weeks unpaid leave and no pay cut, as you can imagine the company said no and has responded by imposing a pay freeze.

gb oils

Colleagues the UK Group Transport Manager has informed the Union that DCC Co-ordinating Committee is not a unit recognised by the Company (GB Oils) and also considering the current climate and costs involved in allowing the stewards to attend the meeting on the 22/06/09.The company cannot agree to paid leave on this occasion. Therefore, should the Stewards wish to attend the meeting, they will have to request either a holiday or unpaid leave .

"Many thanks to all those members who have kindly offered to contribute towards the loss of pay incurred by the DCC Committee Stewards. It's a fantastic gesture and demonstrates that the strength of feeling amongst the members is very high indeed!"

dcc energy

DCC Energy Announce a pay freeze to all its drivers and staff.