It is a shame that all too many Hauliers - see “Bottom Line Payroll” as being a problem, rather than “Fuel Cost” in terms of “Company Vision for the Future”.
One would think that a fuel price likely down by a third in the near future might have an upward influence on wages - but no.
Give a company an inch, and it’ll take a mile.
No one gave a ■■■■ when people damaged kit, wasted fuel, or lost contracts - even when prices were at the top of the market.
But unions pushing for shorter hours, higher wages, and … shock-horror - put in for more docket than the next bod doing the same job?
We can’t have THAT off our bottom line - can we?
It isn’t important if there is a “driver shortage” or not.
What’s important is that firms clearly do not believe there is.
We might get treated a whole lot better by firms, contract-wise - if we did see our haulier firms “running scared” a bit now that we’ve got all time low levels of new drivers coming into the transport industry, and all “New Jobs” seem to involve the C2 licence rather than C+E now.
I remember when P&H went ■■■■ up a while back - Brakes took the whole lot of the Snodland/Aylesford crew on, absorbing the lot, and STILL demanding “We need more drivers on our early doors multidrop runs”…
Is the actual C+E job at risk now?
What would it take for firms to stop this “cutting back” on running articulated vehicles in favour of “Factory Farm” style C2 Multidrop work?
…Hardly an “Equal Opportunity” thing neither - I don’t think there will be many women interested in such work… Maybe 5% takeup rather than the 50% any such self-proclaimed “Equal Opportunity” implies to be huh?