Right so reading on here there’s a lot of venom directed to Stobarts and their drivers.
I don’t look at them as different to any others. They’re just making a crust like I am but that’s just my view.
So why the hate? What have they done or what do they do that irks everyone? I do renember the telly program and thought it was very cringeworthy but still…
toonsy:
Right so reading on here there’s a lot of venom directed to Stobarts and their drivers.I don’t look at them as different to any others. They’re just making a crust like I am but that’s just my view.
So why the hate? What have they done or what do they do that irks everyone? I do renember the telly program and thought it was very cringeworthy but still…
Undercut the rates of hauliers to win contracts and helped turn the job to crap.
Yeah I get that. But its also how Wincanton/DHL/insertotherlargecompany do it but they seem to be relatively untouched.
P.S I don’t work for Stobarts I’m just curious is all
Is there not an area of haulage they’ve not got a truck on, they’ve even started pulling for Marshall’s, and if I’m not mistaken they’ve even ventured into powder tankers.
toonsy:
Yeah I get that. But its also how Wincanton/DHL/insertotherlargecompany do it but they seem to be relatively untouched.P.S I don’t work for Stobarts I’m just curious is all
DHL pay £12 a hour for class one,Stobrats pay £9.86.
I think it’s size of company but also they’ve made themselves stand out more any other company. Being high profile makes them a bigger target.
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eagerbeaver:
Undercut the rates of hauliers to win contracts and helped turn the job to crap.
Yep, they cut the rates and soon enough we all have to put up with their level of wages.
I think a lot is historic as they apparently ran contracts at a loss or at cost originally, caused a lot if companies to go bust and then when they had a monopoly they bumped up the costs.
It didnt entirely work as they nearly went bump themselves after getting too big so his brothers came in to save it first time.
Maybe its also the public image they tried to create with the holier than thou impression, whereby they were very much corporate behind the scenes. A bit like Apple in the tech world and their fanbois.
Must admit, for a single guy based in a little village in ■■■■■■■ to become what he did is rather impressive and there are plenty up there who admire him.
eagerbeaver:
toonsy:
Right so reading on here there’s a lot of venom directed to Stobarts and their drivers.I don’t look at them as different to any others. They’re just making a crust like I am but that’s just my view.
So why the hate? What have they done or what do they do that irks everyone? I do renember the telly program and thought it was very cringeworthy but still…
Undercut the rates of hauliers to win contracts and helped turn the job to crap.
So have many others, from small hauliers cutting rates to get work off their rivals to the big players. It’s not just Stobart.
IronEddie:
I think it’s size of company but also they’ve made themselves stand out more any other company. Being high profile makes them a bigger target.Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
They are not even in the top 5 of largest haulage companies in the UK, but they do have the highest profile and maybe that’s why they get so much venom from drivers.
Stobarts is a big company, most of the hatred originated from years ago when they undercut so many companies to steal contracts and pay drivers less, as with Swifts over here it was the same but then the focus was mainly directed at the accidents they seem to have. For such a large company the percentage of accidents is no more than any other company when you look at the figures.
Other reasons for hatred can be contributed to jealousy, you might mock and say ‘Who the [zb] would be jealous of anyone driving for Stobarts ?’ but in fact I will bet quite a few drivers who work for small companies who pay rubbish wages and no security would really love to work for a company with better job security. When I drove for Tesco’s I got some hatred towards me which I put down to the jealousy because we made very good wages etc.
Put a lot of good and old established haulage companies out of business
gazsa401:
Put a lot of good and old established haulage companies out of business
I’m from where they originated, they put more businesses out of action up here than The Luftwaffe, that is why they were christened ‘The Green Death’ in this area.
A complete shower of ■■■■ with their heads firmly embedded up their own arse holes, believing all their own bs/hype.
Never been involved with that side of the haulage industry personally but I remember (and it must be 20 years ago now) a lad from Scotland sheeting his bulker alongside me at the Derbyshire quarry I worked at. He told me that Stobarts, a much smaller concern back then, were wanting to put some trucks into the gypsum plant he normally worked for and would haul anywhere in the UK for (I think at that time) £4 per tonne. Kent, Cornwall or local in Scotland, all the same rate. Reason being that they wanted backloads and needed vehicles to get to those areas so were prepared to run at a loss to get them. This chap also said that they made more money from the storage side of the business, the trucks were just a means of hauling the stuff, James Irlam worked on the same principle I believe? I’m amazed at just how big they have become though, and Eddie did the right thing and got the Great British Public on his side. I knew a few folk in their eighties who were members of the spotters club, they had been train spotters in their youth and saw this as a way of continuing the theme after trains became just like busses on rails and they purchased all the ‘tat’ that he sold to collectors. None of the firms I worked for approached haulage like that!! 
Pete.
Doesn’t really matter if they are big companies or local businesses and growing. Jeff Atkinson is a [zb] to work for
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Wheel Nut:
Doesn’t really matter if they are big companies or local businesses and growing. Jeff Atkinson is a *unt to work forSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You forgot the “i” in Unit, silly man.
I wiz always a crap spuller
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The hatred stems from when William Stobart was at the helm and not his brother Edward, unlike their father who brought haulage into the the modern age, William took Stobarts to the brink of bankruptcy by engaging in new ventures and pushing the boundaries by under cutting smaller haulage firms who had well established contracts. William lost the Naafi contract which placed Stobarts in Europe and the depot at Lokeren became a storage yard for the Kuhn & Nagel drinks contract.
The rumour has it that Edward returned to Stobarts to see what was wrong, both William and his new business buddy Andy Tinkler escorted Edward around Appleton Thorne, Edward got to Ops and looked at the unnecessary staff sat at desks and streamlined the Ops staff with immediate effect.
Another thing that rubs other drivers the wrong way is Stobarts drivers bloating, they’ve all been on the F1 crew, if the stories they say are true then if the F1 crew wagons parked bumper to bumper they’d complete the Nurnberg Ring
I may be mistaken, but i’ve never seen or heard of a motor doing farm collections, weather it be grain or milk… maybe it would get the motors too dirty.
Its just business and all businesses do the very same thing. The supermarkets took all the business away from the corner shops but no one hates them, the supermarkets all undercut each other or worse, they price fix. Car manufacturers do it all the time. Stobart is not to blame for the state that this industry is in, the drivers have played as much of a part as anyone else for allowing this to get to where it is now.
TheNewBoy:
I may be mistaken, but i’ve never seen or heard of a motor doing farm collections, weather it be grain or milk… maybe it would get the motors too dirty.
Eddie Stobart started out collecting from farms around the Carlisle area in the 40’s / 50’s, as a one man band working up to what they became when handing it over to his eldest son Edward in the 70’s.