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”!