overworked/underpaid:
Is it not time the 15 hour rule should be changed to 12 hours,as more and more companies are planning 15 hour work loads every day, Tesco and many others, by the time you have done 15 hours work plus travel to and from work had a shower and something to eat, you are around the 17+ hours mark before you hit the sack, surely this is wrong!, is it not time we did something about this like an e-petition or something, is 12 hours not enough!
limeyphil:
Driving lorries has always been associated with long hours. Why start doing a job like this then complain about the hours?
It’s like jumping in the sea then complaining about being wet.
It’s not even working for 15 hours. driving is the working part, and you can only do that for 10 hours at the most.
there’s far too many soft arsed, can’t do, won’t do fools that call themselves lorry drivers nowadays.
limeyphil:
Driving lorries has always been associated with long hours. Why start doing a job like this then complain about the hours?
It’s like jumping in the sea then complaining about being wet.
It’s not even working for 15 hours. driving is the working part, and you can only do that for 10 hours at the most.
there’s far too many soft arsed, can’t do, won’t do fools that call themselves lorry drivers nowadays.
What a complete buffoon!!!
If you don’t agree with me, Then that’s fine. But simply putting the comment like that without an explanation or putting forward an alternative view for people to discuss, Dosn’t make me look like a buffoon.
Working for a week’s pay in 3 days = good
Working 5-6 days for the same pay = bad.
Why waste half your life going to work 6 days earning the same as what you can get in 3 with some 15 hour shifts?
You really don’t need to be “lazy” or have a “bad work” ethic to merely want to avoid being a slave. To all those wasted hours lost commuting, being on unpaid POA, and of course the real costs of partaking of those things at home as well!
Standing around in some RDC waiting room saying “Yeehaa! - I’ve done an 84 hour week this week for £480 quid - yerrrsss!” is not my idea of something anyone would want to brag about.
I’d rather quietly say I’ve got paid the same in half the number of shifts, and even more likely not talk about it at all, since ignorance breeds more disparity in wages than anything else I reckon. If we all knew we could hold out for decent pay and automcatically get it, then indeed we WOULD all then get it, but “all” would be a smaller pool of us, since 15 hours is a double shift after all.
Just remember that the employers saying “Time’s are 'ard” right now have been saying that since the last recession, and during the interim boom as well!
Perhaps you got a shiny big payrise even! limited to inflation, as is the non-militant English worker’s way to put up with.
overworked/underpaid:
Hi,
I have applied to HM government for an e-petition to be set up, it will take around seven days, if application is successful, so as soon as i know anymore, i will let you know, the industry needs to wake up to this because kids dont want to do this job and these hours/rules etc are one of the causes, so in the long run they are cutting there own throats. Sitting at a desk for 15 hours (not that they do) and making a typing error on a computer is not going to harm anyone, fall asleep at the wheel of an artic on the M1 its a different story .
You have hit the nail on the head there mate!! Well said!!!
Very supportive of this petition and have signed it good luck with it.
It is a sad indicament of the industry and of some of those that work within it that they feel it is acceptable to work 15 hour days in the year 2013 i hope they dont have any regrets in retirement or when they are on their death bed withregards so little time spent for family loved ones and leisure time.
The old saying live to work comes to mind.
Company bosses managers shareholders etc must be laughing at this topic knowing many a prepared to defend the idea that they wish to work 15 hour days more often not for peanut wages.
For what it’s worth, I did a 14.5 hour day today (double manned). It would’ve been closer to 12 but the lorry developed a fault which we decided to get fixed tonight as my co driver is on a nightout with it tomorrow. Nobody at work forced me to do it, done it to help make someone elses’ day that bit easier tomorrow.
I thought there were a glut of us drivers, which is why we get paid so little?
48-84 hours is the norm, plenty contracted for around 55 hours per week. Obviously no full time driver got asked in this survey, because we mustn’t let hard facts get in the way of political lies must we?
limeyphil:
Driving lorries has always been associated with long hours. Why start doing a job like this then complain about the hours?
It’s like jumping in the sea then complaining about being wet.
It’s not even working for 15 hours. driving is the working part, and you can only do that for 10 hours at the most.
there’s far too many soft arsed, can’t do, won’t do fools that call themselves lorry drivers nowadays.
What a complete buffoon!!!
If you don’t agree with me, Then that’s fine. But simply putting the comment like that without an explanation or putting forward an alternative view for people to discuss, Dosn’t make me look like a buffoon.
Not often I agree with Phil but he’s not the buffoon here that’s for sure
Winseer:
It is where I work, but I’ll choose to do the full 15 at premium hourly rates at weekends, rather than midweek when rates are still below par, as they have been the past decade by simply standing still during that time.
It’s called “fiscal drag”.
I don’t commute any distance these days without either my expenses being paid and/or £12ph rates. If that means I find myself not doing anything but local, nights, & weekend work then so be it.
£10ph will do for local work only. My old banger costs to run, so every day I don’t have to drive 90 minutes each way for a shift is hard cash saved, which is the same as hard cash earned another day.
iv changed company and get paid less p/h not as long hours and 2 days off per week and there is only 15quid difference in pay and I’m nearly 70 quid a week better off from saving fuel commuting less distance to work. it doesn’t pay to do 15 hours if u don’t get paid for breaks aswell . follow me I’l be right behind you
I come to work to earn as much as I can from when I start my week to when I finish my week . I am out all week and max my hours out everyday . Simple really no body forces me to do it and I am rewarded for my sterling efforts in a handsome weekly wage
Winseer:
It is where I work, but I’ll choose to do the full 15 at premium hourly rates at weekends, rather than midweek when rates are still below par, as they have been the past decade by simply standing still during that time.
It’s called “fiscal drag”.
I don’t commute any distance these days without either my expenses being paid and/or £12ph rates. If that means I find myself not doing anything but local, nights, & weekend work then so be it.
£10ph will do for local work only. My old banger costs to run, so every day I don’t have to drive 90 minutes each way for a shift is hard cash saved, which is the same as hard cash earned another day.
iv changed company and get paid less p/h not as long hours and 2 days off per week and there is only 15quid difference in pay and I’m nearly 70 quid a week better off from saving fuel commuting less distance to work. it doesn’t pay to do 15 hours if u don’t get paid for breaks aswell . follow me I’l be right behind you
I think the algorithm as to it being profitable working say, 3x15 or 5x9 or 6x7.5 hour shifts doesn’t depend so much upon how far one has to commute, or even how much it costs to fill one’s particular vehicle, bearing in mind everyone’s car is going to be different.
3x15 means 3 round trips per week. 6x7.5 means double that. If I commute an average 20 miles and you commute only 10, and we both get expenses, then we’re both getting the same pay and expenses BUT I’m still wasting less actual time doing the commute - which of course is unpaid as well. It’s not just about paid hours, it’s about spending that one currency you’ll never get a rebate on - “Remaining time of your life”. I like being able to spend quality time with my family on my additional days off I get. Some things can’t have a price put upon them. It’s a lifestyle choice therefore.
I find myself qualifying for extra meal expenses (without an extra meal relief deduction) if I do consistently over 12 hour shifts as well.
Winseer:
I thought there were a glut of us drivers, which is why we get paid so little?
48-84 hours is the norm, plenty contracted for around 55 hours per week. Obviously no full time driver got asked in this survey, because we mustn’t let hard facts get in the way of political lies must we?
55 hrs salaried here. No overtime payment either, no banked hours. Basically I get 55hrs pay per week as long as I’m not off ill.
Although, I had half a day off last month and got docked a days wages for it
Winseer:
I thought there were a glut of us drivers, which is why we get paid so little?
48-84 hours is the norm, plenty contracted for around 55 hours per week. Obviously no full time driver got asked in this survey, because we mustn’t let hard facts get in the way of political lies must we?
55 hrs salaried here. No overtime payment either, no banked hours. Basically I get 55hrs pay per week as long as I’m not off ill.
Although, I had half a day off last month and got docked a days wages for it
The one thing that a long hours contract might have held as an “advantage” is being paid for 55 hours even when on holiday or off sick.
I’ve not been paid anywhere near the same rate whilst doing either holiday or sick EVER since I’ve been driving. This puts to bed any idea that being a driver is or should be a “salaried” profession at all.
The Zero Hour contract concept stinks, but is perfectly normal in agency world. It’s increasingly common in full time work now as well, which is why Agency isn’t as starkly bad compared to Full Time as it used to be.
TO suit the employer you’re "salaried when working more than your base hours would attract a premium payment". So you’ll never qualify for such payments of course…
You might as well say “Hours beyond the 90 hour fortnight actually driving are paid at £80 per hour”.
Then there’s “You’re paid by the hour” when you’re off sick or on holiday, so you get something between SSP and “flat rate” when you’re not at work.
Then there’s the “banked hours” of which you speak. The first 20 days Stat Leave count as 8 hours a day against you, which serves to prevent you stacking up on moonlighting during one’s holidays as well. You’ll not have much chance to work agency during the holidays unless your holiday entitlement goes some way beyond 20 days a year.
We’re Serfs of the Highways my friend. Now we need a Wat Tyler with the one difference of “not being able to be talked down” by some kid in a fancy outfit.
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follow me I’l be right behind you
