Seems like there is a management/driver disconnect.
Why don’t the drivers just leave and get jobs elsewhere?
Why are drivers and warehouse staff considered the same for collective bargaining purposes they are different grades of job ( supposedly ).
Harry Monk:
Why don’t the drivers just leave and get jobs elsewhere?
Take full advantage of the ‘driver shortage’.
Also sue Unite for degrading their jobs.
Harry Monk:
Why don’t the drivers just leave and get jobs elsewhere?
As a Tesco driver. (Albeit I have only been full time for like 4 weeks) I am looking elsewhere and have applied to various places.
I was working at Tesco before I went to University then when I came back from University I just applied to join Tesco as I knew it without really sniffing out the wages in the local area. In Thurrock they are the lowest paying supermarket in the area by quite a bit.
adam277:
As a Tesco driver.
It’s obvious that the Union views the job as warehouse operative/driver and as such that’s what the employer will base its further negotiating position on if it has any sense.
Even in my case the T and G didn’t actually negotiate drivers and warehouse staff wage deals collectively.
The Union will probably stitch them up by settling for 3% but drivers can be used as warehouse staff as and when required then the firm will pay for the ‘increase’ by shedding warehouse staff.
It seems that any pay deal isn’t separated for the drivers and the warehouse staff.
Carryfast:
adam277:
As a Tesco driver.It’s obvious that the Union views the job as warehouse operative/driver and as such that’s what the employer will base its further negotiating position on if it has any sense.
Even in my case the T and G didn’t actually negotiate drivers and warehouse staff wage deals collectively.
The Union will probably stitch them up by settling for 3% but drivers can be used as warehouse staff as and when required then the firm will pay for the ‘increase’ by shedding warehouse staff.
Yes use drivers as warehouse ops, why don’t they try it the other way round then if the jobs are equal, will solve their driver shortage pretty quickly.
It’s not just tesco where the collective bargaining is like this, Asda is the same.
The Union moaned like ■■■■ when Asda gave drivers a £750 bonus but not the warehouse, which was effectively a retention bonus because they were scared drivers were gonna jump ship to tesco for the £1000 sign on bonus.
We have USDAW at our DC and we have also rejected a 2.5% pay rise. As my topic on pay disparity, we the union members want the union to address the issue.
drover:
It’s not just tesco where the collective bargaining is like this, Asda is the same.
The Union moaned like [zb] when Asda gave drivers a £750 bonus but not the warehouse, which was effectively a retention bonus because they were scared drivers were gonna jump ship to tesco for the £1000 sign on bonus.
This sort of crap is one of the reasons why they have a ‘driver’ shortage if there is a driver shortage.
From experience TGWU ( and obviously now Unite ) are happy to degrade the job of drivers by literally seeing the job as no different to warehouse staff and are more than willing to interchange the roles on that basis.
Their stupidity directly resulted in a broken back handballing artic loads and retired on medical grounds at the age of 40 and one more driver to add to the ‘driver shortage’, in my case by allowing warehouse work in exchange for a wage deal.
It’s the unnacceptable face of collective bargaining at least under that unfit for purpose Union.With union leaders of that calibre they don’t need bosses to stitch them up.
Don’t see train drivers lumped in with station ticket office or cleaning staff or even guards for wage negotiations let alone interchanging the roles.
I’ll go as far as calling TGWU/Unite’s leadership scum who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a negotiating table.
Dimlaith:
We have USDAW at our DC and we have also rejected a 2.5% pay rise. As my topic on pay disparity, we the union members want the union to address the issue.
USDAW at my place too. Think next round is next week some time and yes 2.5% was rejected.
However just prior to this they uplifted wages for drivers on the “new” contract only by 7.5% - uplifted as in an increase on rates, written in the T&Cs and included in payslip hourly rates so not a temporary thing.
Avonmouth DC have had an uplift also whereas us new contract drivers in Magor have not. The union’s answer to this…….Avonmouth is in a different country ffs.
Dimlaith:
Avonmouth DC have had an uplift also whereas us new contract drivers in Magor have not. The union’s answer to this…….Avonmouth is in a different country ffs.
Um is UK 
Anyway what’s the rates in avonmouth these days, or what % did they get?
Noremac:
It seems that any pay deal isn’t separated for the drivers and the warehouse staff.
I used to work at Tesco’s Strood. Great place to work and the money was fantastic, but then Tesco shut the depot and I moved to the purfleet Depot must have been about 16 years ago now intially it was great really good money 4 on 4 off, extra at w/ends, night rate started at 1800 so it was all good. Then they lumped us in with the Warehouse and good night Vienna we got out voted on everything all the perks gone no W/end premium night rate started at 2200, 4 on 4 off replaced with any 5/7 I saw the writing was on the wall I was off after 2 years. Don’t get me wrong some off t&c are still good but take home money has stagnated.
Jamestross:
Then they lumped us in with the Warehouse and good night Vienna I saw the writing was on the wall I was off after 2 years.
With hindsight I’ll always bitterly regret not walking away in similar circumstances.Especially if they decide to collectivise the two different respective job roles and duties instead of, or as well as, within the terms of any deal.
Which experience tells me is probably their end game in either case.
Union recognition can sometimes work more in the employers’ favour.Bearing in mind that even if the employees choose to ditch a union gone rogue doesn’t mean that the employer then also has to withdraw its recognition of the union’s right to still act on the employees’ behalf.
This is one of the types of scenario that really goes to the heart of the so called ‘driver’ shortage.
As for TGWU/Unite I was left with the suspicion that the Union movement doesn’t really like road transport.To the point where I was told that it views British based international work as ‘poaching’ the jobs of foreign workers and always the under current that truck drivers are all painted in general as the type who’ll run a picket line and compete with their rail industry elite.
Very sad situation.
Jamestross:
Noremac:
It seems that any pay deal isn’t separated for the drivers and the warehouse staff.I used to work at Tesco’s Strood. Great place to work and the money was fantastic, but then Tesco shut the depot and I moved to the purfleet Depot must have been about 16 years ago now intially it was great really good money 4 on 4 off, extra at w/ends, night rate started at 1800 so it was all good. Then they lumped us in with the Warehouse and good night Vienna we got out voted on everything all the perks gone no W/end premium night rate started at 2200, 4 on 4 off replaced with any 5/7 I saw the writing was on the wall I was off after 2 years. Don’t get me wrong some off t&c are still good but take home money has stagnated.
Hit the nail on the head. Warehouse guys have a dislike towards drivers and it’s very petty.
This is why there has never been a strike at Tesco purfleet that and alot of the drivers just don’t want to strike.
Whoever decided that warehouse guys could vote on truck drivers pay and conditions has saved Tesco alot of money.
Carryfast:
adam277:
As a Tesco driver.It’s obvious that the Union views the job as warehouse operative/driver and as such that’s what the employer will base its further negotiating position on if it has any sense.
Even in my case the T and G didn’t actually negotiate drivers and warehouse staff wage deals collectively.
The Union will probably stitch them up by settling for 3% but drivers can be used as warehouse staff as and when required then the firm will pay for the ‘increase’ by shedding warehouse staff.
You turn everything back to your bitterness at being at having to unload trailers for UPS. Lol. You should never of done it in the first place. If you didn’t your back would be fine right now.
But if you want someone to blame. Blame switchlogic he was one of the subbies who trunked for ups and got the cushy jobs while you was breaking your back unloading.
By all accounts he wasn’t even being paid to trunk for UPS. The satisfaction at him knowing you was in the back of a trailer handballing freight off the back onto a belt was enough of a payment for him.
Harry Monk:
Why don’t the drivers just leave and get jobs elsewhere?
We mustn’t complain - it is the inertia of the full timer being relucant to chuck in what they think is a secure full time job - that pushes agency rates ever higher. There’s only a shortage of agency cover for certain shifts.
A firm could ask their own full timers if they’d like to cover such shifts, BUT instead of giving it out on Overtime (optional) it is instead handed out on “Any 5 from 7” staff with impunity, and then they wonder why their full timers are so reluctant to do any overtime, or throw sickies when they are rotated into some god-awful round to do…
In the end, it’ll get put out to agency that shift - but the agency has already booked out all their drivers to supermarkets, so the only way you can get cover is if you take the “9 points OK” crowd that the supermarkets won’t touch - OR pay stupid money to “poach from elsewhere”.
This isn’t going to end - until the day comes where suddenly loads of full timers up sticks and leave at once.
At that point, some firms will be going to the wall because their in-house policy is to NOT employ their former full time staff who then try to come back on £10ph+ agency. But they were the only drivers left who already knew the job well enough to do it without “teething problems”!
adam277:
You turn everything back to your bitterness at being at having to unload trailers for UPS. Lol. You should never of done it in the first place. If you didn’t your back would be fine right now.
But if you want someone to blame. Blame switchlogic he was one of the subbies who trunked for ups and got the cushy jobs while you was breaking your back unloading.
By all accounts he wasn’t even being paid to trunk for UPS. The satisfaction at him knowing you was in the back of a trailer handballing freight off the back onto a belt was enough of a payment for him.
But you’re saying that you don’t like warehouse staff deciding drivers terms and conditions.
Just to be clear warehouse staff never even had any say in what the union agreed to on our/my behalf.
Nor did the drivers.
All that’s needed is for the union to agree the precedent that drivers can be lumped in with warehouse staff and from that point you’re a driver/warehouse operative regarding terms, conditions and duties.
In our case it was agreed without any ballot or even consultation.
I didn’t get an option to do it or not.
A union agreement removes any rights you have and the choice is walk away from the job or get on with it.Bearing in mind that a disciplinary for refusal had already been issued against me at that point and that would have been the reference I had to give the next employer.
So are you saying that such union irregularities and employers’ greed and stupidity, all to save a few bob in warehouse staff costs, are a good thing or not ?.Assuming that they don’t want a ‘driver shortage’.
You know things are bad when you have Winseer on his usual “Any 5 from 7” rant and Carryfast babbling on about drivers doing “warehouse duties” within the same thread!
tmcassett:
You know things are bad when you have Winseer on his usual “Any 5 from 7” rant and Carryfast babbling on about drivers doing “warehouse duties” within the same thread!
Neither of them have anything better to do with their time so post rubbish on here. Winseer can’t get any work anywhere as he’s banned or “not requried” everywhere and CF in his care home probably hasn’t seen the outside world for at least 20 years - probably more judging by his 40 year old anecdotes of “regrets” and “hindsight”.