Morning all, sort of been offered a job on class 2, I say sort of because I’ve got to go back for a driving assesment first. It’s monday to Friday working with two nights out a week (more if the driver wants them) the only thing I’m not sure about is the pay they’re offering. They don’t pay by the hour it’s a weekly rate plus some bonuses and other things and it works out at £490 top line a week basic plus nights out are paid at £25 per night. I work on the buses at the minute and paid by the hour so don’t mind long shifts when it’s hourly pay I just can’t help but think if you’re on a weekly/day rate that they’ll get you doing silly hours and it’ll actually work out pretty poor pay for the hours you do. Opinions please 
I’ll try avoid salaried set pay jobs.
I did one ages ago for a small manufacturing company. For a while job was ok doing 45 hours give or take. But after 6 months started giving me more to do before knew it my 45 hours a week was being 50 i.mentioned it to owner he said well we are busy we can give you an extra £5 a week pay rise to make up for it.
I stayed there until I found something else hourly paid.
It’s a way around paying minimum wage or less. Add up hours you do and some weeks your less than minimum wage.
Get a hourly paid job
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liam6226:
Morning all, sort of been offered a job on class 2, I say sort of because I’ve got to go back for a driving assesment first. It’s monday to Friday working with two nights out a week (more if the driver wants them) the only thing I’m not sure about is the pay they’re offering. They don’t pay by the hour it’s a weekly rate plus some bonuses and other things and it works out at £490 top line a week basic plus nights out are paid at £25 per night. I work on the buses at the minute and paid by the hour so don’t mind long shifts when it’s hourly pay I just can’t help but think if you’re on a weekly/day rate that they’ll get you doing silly hours and it’ll actually work out pretty poor pay for the hours you do. Opinions please
Avoid, they will work you ragged … stick to the buses you will get better pay. 490 for salary, if they make you do 3x15 plus 2 10 that is a 65 hour week for 490 = 7.53 an hour … imagine doing 65 on the buses … I’m sure you would earn more then 490 excluding the 25 per nightly extra … be smart hourly or a no no they are mugging you off …and is it a driving assessment unpaid as usual?
Rigid salary should be around the £33k+ region, and that’s for sensible 40/45 hour weeks.
Remember if you are doing nights out anyway, there is no reason for 15 hour days, you are driving the lorry not them, but as always there will be some give and take top get the job done or you home on a Friday night.
Salary can work very well (it works well where i am) but what you have quoted isn’t salary, you need to speak to some of the other drivers (not the blue eyed ones the company would suggest either) and see what the hours are really like and how the pay works out in practice (eg how much is bank holiday rate, paid right through from start to finish, stopped 45 mins or all the breaks you ned to take, are you expected to use POA*?)…what you have mentioned isn’t salary as such because the total includes bonuses and ‘‘other things’’, which could mean15 hour day planning to attain.
I’d be wary, as others have said if long hours are involved you’d probably be better off on minimum wage and overtime after 9 hours per day.
*The POA question is pertinent and something you need clarifying, if they expect you to use POA that means they want long hours, if (as in the better salaried jobs) POA is not required then that tells you that more sensible hours are involved…which also leads on to a further question, what happens if your hours are high and you need some stand down time or shorter hours for several weeks to bring the average down?..will you be compensated as proper companies do?
Don’t forget expenses, eg parking re-imbursements, also licence fees medical fees and DCPC fees (completed in work time?), are they picking these tabs up?
And clarify these ‘other things’, if a meal allowance is part of that £490 will it be paid on holidays and bank holidays, yes small fry but if you find your top line on a holiday week is £390■■?
One other thing, make sure that £490 doesn’t include the 2 night out payments mentioned, NO pay is nothing to do with wages despite so many here including it in their take home pay 
If this is for a general haulage firm them leave well alone,never and I repeat never accept a salary in general haulage in my experience.
BUT if this if for a firm delivering there own products that the sell or manufacturer etc it could be a good job.
I once worked for a food retailer and was on good salary and never did more than 9 hours a day I did 2 nights out a week but that was due to customers closing times etc.
I had regular overnight stops where I knew I would be there each week because the runs never changed.
If it’s something like that then I’d go for it…
I’d take whatever the weekly pay is minus any bonus and nights out and that’s your actual top line. Then calculate that over 15 hours per day (x3) and 13 x 2 and you’ll get your hourly rate. Yep, seriously crap.
Bonus’ have a mysterious problem of disappearing except for the aforementioned blue eyed boys / girls / binary non-genders (etc), and wouldn’t be surprised if the nights out either vanish or you end up doing a lot more than 2. Whenever they say “if the driver wants” it usually means “when we tell you” so there’ll either be loads or non.
Plus you’re guaranteed to be required to do max hours and min sleep, eg: 15 hour day, go home then return to work in less than 9 hours to start again. Try doing that plus eating, sleeping and showering - it ain’t fun!
Anyone advertising a job like that is 95% sure to be a con-artist who doesn’t pay their taxes and goes bust then reopens 5 days later with your pay packet in their bank and of course if you want a new job then it’s a new contract with a new company and bang goes any holiday pay etc.
I worked a salaried job once. Never, ever again.
Usual speel. “Oh if you only do 9 hours you still get paid for 11 but if you do over you dont get paid. It all works out in the end”
Did it ■■■■■■■■. After a fortnight id have needed to work 2 weeks of 7 hr days to break even.
Salaried jobs rarely benefit the driver imo because if they did, the company would soon swap to an hourly pay to save money
As said…if it’s general,they’ll want you out all hours.
Thank you all for your replies and input…pretty much what I was thinking myself I’d much rather be paid by the hour and a few of my bus driving buddies who’ve driven lorries in the past have said the same, I’ll keep looking about for jobs anyway and I’m not desperate to leave my current job at the minute plus I’m doing my class 1 in November so that should open a few extra doors in terms of job opportunities as well.
Juddian:
Rigid salary should be around the £33k+ region, and that’s for sensible 40/45 hour weeks.
Not round Yorks, it’s nowhere near that.
Not many Class1 go near 30k!!
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If a job has a high hourly rate - you want maxed hours, and open overtime.
If a job is salaried - you want as few hours and shifts as possible.
Jobs tend to have this double whammy of stating things like “Guaranteed 55 hours work per week” - and then fail to mention a top-dollar hourly rate.
Those that mention what looks like a “decent salary” - omit to tell you that you’ll be doing well over 50 hours per week to get that flat money.
The “Allowances” making up the headline pay - mean that your pay drops quite a bit when you are on holiday or off sick as well, assuming you even get sick pay.
Like “Defined Benefits” Pension Plans - the best job T&Cs you can get - are those that actually define the full JOB, a bit like the old Royal Mail 318’s.
If the duty says “goto x, bring back from there, take stuff to Y, come back with empties, book off 10hrs 45m” then you know in advance you WON’T be “sent out to do another 3 hour run” when you get back, having already put in a full shift. 
AVOID “Ad-Hoc” jobs then, I would suggest.
“Daily Rate” or “Salaried” people will always be run ragged in an “undefined job” environment otherwise.
The opposite happens - when you get overtime after say, 8 hours - only to find you are planned to be booking off back at the depot at the 9hr mark - so after the hour is taken off, you only get flat pay each and every day.
Also, “Time and a half” isn’t much good - if that overtime rate is still lower than the better FLAT rates that are out there.
I’m gobsmacked that there are still haulage yards that can get away with paying less than a tenner per hour as their flat hourly rate, salaried or no! 
dcgpx:
Juddian:
Rigid salary should be around the £33k+ region, and that’s for sensible 40/45 hour weeks.Not round Yorks, it’s nowhere near that.
Not many Class1 go near 30k!!
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That is indeed the trouble with regional differences, but usually the cost of housing alleviates the differences somewhat.
I did a salaried job once. Own account work.
worked a 6 hour night shift got paid for 10 hours…best job I ever had.
yorkshire terrier:
If this is for a general haulage firm them leave well alone,never and I repeat never accept a salary in general haulage in my experience.
BUT if this if for a firm delivering there own products that the sell or manufacturer etc it could be a good job.
I once worked for a food retailer and was on good salary and never did more than 9 hours a day I did 2 nights out a week but that was due to customers closing times etc.
I had regular overnight stops where I knew I would be there each week because the runs never changed.
If it’s something like that then I’d go for it…
It’s the company he was asking about the other day.
Company in North East Lincolnshire.
General Haulage and delivering/collecting palletised goods. This stuff than goes to the Hubs via Night trunks.
Liam stay off it, if you want to try it, go agency as PAYE and try this and other outfits.
But don’t leave the buses for an agency job!!!Either try Agency on your days off if possible and legal [emoji15][emoji849][emoji848] Otherwise wait till you have your Class 1.
Stobarts are also looking for Class 1 drivers in Immingham. DAYS/NIGHTS/TRAMPING
They give newbies a start, even if they’re not the “job lifetime outfit” but you will have lots of work during winter and gain expierience. Also easy work.
They work on the Knauf Contract but once you’re empty you will get allsorts of re-loads Coca-Cola, Britvic, Stuff for Tesco, Cemex etc.
" Take me down to the parasite city where the grass is green and the pay is [zb], oh won’t you please take me home "…
Juddian:
dcgpx:
Juddian:
Rigid salary should be around the £33k+ region, and that’s for sensible 40/45 hour weeks.Not round Yorks, it’s nowhere near that.
Not many Class1 go near 30k!!
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That is indeed the trouble with regional differences, but usually the cost of housing alleviates the differences somewhat.
Yeh, it used to back in the 80’s housing bubble - but these days? I’m on 33k now, and I can’t even afford to commute to another town more than 50 miles away to keep such a wage.
Now that the cost of living is just as high in places like York as in the Stockbroker Belt - How can hauliers still get staff willing to drive across country - for a piddling hourly rate that makes Stobarts look like the haulage equivalent of Goldman Sachs■■? 
eagerbeaver:
" Take me down to the parasite city where the grass is green and the pay is [zb], oh won’t you please take me home "…
…“Where the loafing reds groan, and the antifa dopes moan, and the beer stands going flatter all dayyy… Where sesame seeds hurt, and the burglar’s not “Burt”, - and the son’s nose is shiny all dayyy…”
Yeah I’m going to stay on the buses for now, probably until I’ve got my class 1 but will keep looking about see if anything comes up that’s hourly paid I deffo don’t fancy this day rate lark especially if I end up doing 60 odd hours a week on it then the pay won’t seem that good then.