stevieboy308:
i don’t see your reason why you’ve never used poa, but that’s up to you
Because I recognised from the start that POA was (and is) a ridiculous unpoliceable fudge which would lead to a net change of absolutely sod - all in our excessive working hours. At the time the WTD was first mooted, I was working on general haulage doing 70+ hours a week, which was nothing unusual. I felt then that that was too many hours, and when I discovered that legislation was being introduced to bring it down to 48 hours, I was over the moon: I could have my working week all wrapped up by Thursday morning! Then POA was introduced and it became apparent that very little was going to change. So I refused to book POA, and eventually found myself a job where I didn’t need to.
i totally agree it was / is a big cop out, resulting little change to working hours. i, like you would’ve prefered the 48 hour to be 48 hours! i don’t believe it’s unpoliceable.
as it happens when the wtd came in, i had already dropped from 5 to 4 days a week, so if you didn’t want 70 hours a week you didn’t have too, granted fewer options though.
weeto:
Also just to add, drivers who insist on using POA have done this industry no favours.
We was promised a 48 hr week, it didn’t happen, we got screwed over, with this POA.
come on fella, are you really telling me you expect people with bills to pay are just going to stop work when they could legally carry to the 60 / 65 they did before. yes i know the benefits if they did, but it’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation and anyway, each to their own.
Anyone who’d rather work 60+ hours to earn the same as 48 hours needs their head looking at.
The whole point of an enforced 48 hour clocked-on limit per week is that there’s no encouragement to work over, work tired, or pay staff too little for working what is still many more hours than the average government/office worker.
We should all be on at least £500 per week for a max of 48 hours at work. Allowing additional hours ends up still being paid at best £500pw for the firms that can get away with taking the ■■■■. These are the ones that will argue “times are 'ard” (even in boom years of course!) and the “desperate pride” work ethic from up north which seems to have become like the third world for some time since.
stevieboy308:
i don’t see your reason why you’ve never used poa, but that’s up to you
Because I recognised from the start that POA was (and is) a ridiculous unpoliceable fudge which would lead to a net change of absolutely sod - all in our excessive working hours. At the time the WTD was first mooted, I was working on general haulage doing 70+ hours a week, which was nothing unusual. I felt then that that was too many hours, and when I discovered that legislation was being introduced to bring it down to 48 hours, I was over the moon: I could have my working week all wrapped up by Thursday morning! Then POA was introduced and it became apparent that very little was going to change. So I refused to book POA, and eventually found myself a job where I didn’t need to.
i totally agree it was / is a big cop out, resulting little change to working hours. i, like would’ve prefered the 48 hour to be 48 hours! i don’t believe it’s unpoliceable. as it happens when the wtd came in, i had already dropped from 5 to 4 days a week, so if you didn’t want 70 hours a week you didn’t have too, granted fewer options though.
It’s completely unpoliceable. You can book POA only if you’re informed of the length of any delay in advance. Who’s to say whether you were informed or not? There’s no requirement for it to be in writing. I’ve been told more than once by transport managers to book more POA, as if it’s a thing you can just book as the fancy takes you.
Winseer is quite right, none of us should be working more than 48 hours a week, and what’s more we should be on a good wage for those hours. The industry relies on those people who take a misplaced pride in working fifteen hour days, and POA only encourages this. If the WTD legislation had any teeth it’d be a better thing all round.
ROG:
POA is not the main issue because if there was no POA then putting it on break would have the same effect
POA is the whole issue here ROG.
For drivers who don’t get breaks paid would have to put it on other work if they wanted paying whilst tipping on a bay, resulting in shorter week, which was the whole idea in the first place!
POA gives that driver the scope to work well in excess of 48 hrs.
And depending on how you are paid, it’s either a good thing or a bad thing, but drivers being drivers will just carry on regardless of that.
You can probably work out why on your own! But is that driver on salary in the RDC saying its illegal to tip on break or POA really stupid, or is it the other drivers who don’t listen to him.
ROG:
POA is not the main issue because if there was no POA then putting it on break would have the same effect
POA is the whole issue here ROG.
For drivers who don’t get breaks paid would have to put it on other work if they wanted paying whilst tipping on a bay, resulting in shorter week, which was the whole idea in the first place!
POA gives that driver the scope to work well in excess of 48 hrs.
And depending on how you are paid, it’s either a good thing or a bad thing, but drivers being drivers will just carry on regardless of that.
You can probably work out why on your own! But is that driver on salary in the RDC saying its illegal to tip on break or POA really stupid, or is it the other drivers who don’t listen to him.
How many drivers do not get all their recorded breaks paid? - ignoring the first 45 mins which I know many do not get paid for
ROG:
POA is not the main issue because if there was no POA then putting it on break would have the same effect
POA is the whole issue here ROG.
For drivers who don’t get breaks paid would have to put it on other work if they wanted paying whilst tipping on a bay, resulting in shorter week, which was the whole idea in the first place!
POA gives that driver the scope to work well in excess of 48 hrs.
And depending on how you are paid, it’s either a good thing or a bad thing, but drivers being drivers will just carry on regardless of that.
You can probably work out why on your own! But is that driver on salary in the RDC saying its illegal to tip on break or POA really stupid, or is it the other drivers who don’t listen to him.
How many drivers do not get all their recorded breaks paid? - ignoring the first 45 mins which I know many do not get paid for
Quite a few, from reading this forum!! Hence the reason why they are having to record POA.
But a driver on salary, shouldn’t have to.
There was never any legal requirement for firms to “not pay for the 45 break”.
It’s just a skinflint backdoor way that wages could be docked for one, and of course anyone booking hours and hours of POA/Breaks could then not book it as paid overtime. You might be at work 80+ hours a week, and only get paid for 48 of them. Even worse, 55 hour weeks “salaried” is now commonplace among full timer’s contracts.
The thing about high contracted base hours is that it’s very hard to book overtime on top of it, because it’s already over 48 hours FFS!
I left full time for many reasons, a collapse in overtime being one of them. I want a 36-40 hour week with plentiful overtime to make up my hours to 48, so if and when I work 48 hours week in, week out (which I did right upto 2009) I get to take home a decent wage for those regular, legal, and above all SAFE hours.
Outside of RM, unless and until fuel prices collapse, there is no room for any one haulier to start competing with the others UPWARDLY for the recruitment and retention of drivers. Thus, skinflint operating procedures for full timers are set to continue, and are here to stay for the time being.
It’s very interesting other posters, those that know it all about rules and regulations and the law governing drivers hours of work have not posted on this thread.
Is it really as bad as it looks from all these posts and from the silence of those not having anything to add?
weeto:
Also just to add, drivers who insist on using POA have done this industry no favours.
We was promised a 48 hr week, it didn’t happen, we got screwed over, with this POA.
come on fella, are you really telling me you expect people with bills to pay are just going to stop work when they could legally carry to the 60 / 65 they did before. yes i know the benefits if they did, but it’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation and anyway, each to their own.
If drivers had refused to use it from the start things may have been different, but stuff like that doesn’t happen in this industry, it’s dog eat dog.
All drivers do on here is moan about working to many hours for little return for it, if they don’t want to do anything positive to change things, they should stop moaning about it on a forum!
Do the French work a 48hr week on average, I was tipping with a French tanker the other week, and he’d started at 7.30 in morning, he was then going from Derby to Ketton cement, loading, then to Ashford to park up, 10 hrs finished every day.
stevieboy308:
i don’t see your reason why you’ve never used poa, but that’s up to you
Because I recognised from the start that POA was (and is) a ridiculous unpoliceable fudge which would lead to a net change of absolutely sod - all in our excessive working hours. At the time the WTD was first mooted, I was working on general haulage doing 70+ hours a week, which was nothing unusual. I felt then that that was too many hours, and when I discovered that legislation was being introduced to bring it down to 48 hours, I was over the moon: I could have my working week all wrapped up by Thursday morning! Then POA was introduced and it became apparent that very little was going to change. So I refused to book POA, and eventually found myself a job where I didn’t need to.
i totally agree it was / is a big cop out, resulting little change to working hours. i, like would’ve prefered the 48 hour to be 48 hours! i don’t believe it’s unpoliceable. as it happens when the wtd came in, i had already dropped from 5 to 4 days a week, so if you didn’t want 70 hours a week you didn’t have too, granted fewer options though.
It’s completely unpoliceable. You can book POA only if you’re informed of the length of any delay in advance. Who’s to say whether you were informed or not? There’s no requirement for it to be in writing. I’ve been told more than once by transport managers to book more POA, as if it’s a thing you can just book as the fancy takes you.
Winseer is quite right, none of us should be working more than 48 hours a week, and what’s more we should be on a good wage for those hours. The industry relies on those people who take a misplaced pride in working fifteen hour days, and POA only encourages this. If the WTD legislation had any teeth it’d be a better thing all round.
i was meaning the 48 hour side of things rather than the poa side, obviously i appreciate the effect that poa has on the 48 average, i agree that side of it is unpoliceable and then fair enough ultimately that would make the whole thing unpoliceable. but i still don’t see why there couldn’t be a prosecution for the 48 hour average, which is what i thought was being talked about? but maybe it was written like it is to give the individual drivers the choice, who knows?
being informed of the delay in advance is not the only circumstance that you can book poa
i was fully in favour of the 48 hour average, still am, but plenty weren’t / arn’t
Winseer:
There was never any legal requirement for firms to “not pay for the 45 break”.
It’s just a skinflint backdoor way that wages could be docked for one, and of course anyone booking hours and hours of POA/Breaks could then not book it as paid overtime. You might be at work 80+ hours a week, and only get paid for 48 of them. Even worse, 55 hour weeks “salaried” is now commonplace among full timer’s contracts.
haven’t we had this before?
can you please explain how someone doing hours and hours of poa / breaks could then not book it as overtime? and 80+ hours but only getting paid for 48?
i would say the vast majority of people in every industry don’t get paid breaks
weeto:
Also just to add, drivers who insist on using POA have done this industry no favours.
We was promised a 48 hr week, it didn’t happen, we got screwed over, with this POA.
come on fella, are you really telling me you expect people with bills to pay are just going to stop work when they could legally carry to the 60 / 65 they did before. yes i know the benefits if they did, but it’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation and anyway, each to their own.
If drivers had refused to use it from the start things may have been different, but stuff like that doesn’t happen in this industry, it’s dog eat dog.
All drivers do on here is moan about working to many hours for little return for it, if they don’t want to do anything positive to change things, they should stop moaning about it on a forum!
if it came in like i and plenty others thought, 48 average, no poa, no break, just duty time then wages would’ve changed straight away with shift patterns. this is what happened where i worked when it came in, as it was one of the few class 1 jobs that was affected. it was multi dropping to corner shops and self tipping so pretty much no poa, resulting in a 4 day week and a better rate.
but it didn’t come in like that, so for the majority it becomes a chicken or egg situation. wages won’t rise overnight in that situation so people don’t want / can’t afford to lose money, so they work the same hours, therefore the supply demand ratio doesn’t change and so neither does the pay.
i don’t think this would only happen in this industry, people are people! as well as dogs!
some drivers moan about it, some don’t, some do things to change, some don’t, some stop moaning, some don’t, some tell others to stop moaning. drivers are individuals with different opinions, preferences, circumstances etc. for every post ■■■■■■■■ about too many hours, i’ve probably seen a post ■■■■■■■■ about the regs / wtd restricting earning potential.
weeto:
Also just to add, drivers who insist on using POA have done this industry no favours.
We was promised a 48 hr week, it didn’t happen, we got screwed over, with this POA.
come on fella, are you really telling me you expect people with bills to pay are just going to stop work when they could legally carry to the 60 / 65 they did before. yes i know the benefits if they did, but it’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation and anyway, each to their own.
People with bills ? LOL !! We’re in the UK in 2013, people don’t work 60/65 hours to pay bills. They work 60/65 hours to get a brand new car, foreign holiday, put kids in private school,pay for a new kitchen/conservatory or whatever, but there is no need to work them hours to pay bills.
^^^^ 60+ hours pays the bills…and nothing else. I don’t pay much per month in interest unlike most folk, but the cost of living, especially utility bills and fuel right now is as bad as it’s ever been. Giving up full time for agency only cost me £73 a week in lower earnings, but I now get two days a week extra off on average. Commuting, eating at work, and car maintenance are most affordable when working less, longer shifts rather than more short ones.
The only way the previous comment can be correct is if you’ve still living with your mum.
Savings? Holidays? New Car? - You need a dual income and no kids at home to get that out of “average wages” these days.
I’m not a “Dinky”. I used to break 'em when I was a kid, and was considered 'ard for it, but that’s about it.
internetfan:
If he does so many hours over the 48hrs limit than he should be getting something like 8-12hrs off, at the end of his 26 weeks reference period, for every week he has been working.
That would mean he would have an extra 2-3 weeks of time off (holiday) at the end of his 26 weeks reference period.
Thanks
Yes he would have a holiday, although it would be an unpaid one as a weeks paid holiday counts as a 48 hour working week.
i understand that they can’t pay you as then your working so that means being stood down without pay.
We’re in the UK in 2013, people don’t work 60/65 hours to pay bills. They work 60/65 hours to get a brand new car, foreign holiday, put kids in private school,pay for a new kitchen/conservatory or whatever, but there is no need to work them hours to pay bills.
