A higher wage rate for hanging around?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

There seems to be so many jobs advertised at various rates per hour an per annum.
As was recently commented on an ad for Waitrose (other supermarkets struggling to pay drivers an attractive wage are available) the annual wage seems to bear no relation to the hourly rate and seems to be based on the fact it will be entirely night shifts at maximum hours (even if they’re limited to ten hours overnight for instance) and working every bank holiday perhaps?

Perhaps if there was a requirement for all drivers to be paid time and a half for ANY waiting involved throughout the day such as anything in excess of half an hour to fully unload a trailer for example. Ideally perhaps it should all be drop and swaps at RDCs with no queueing up and sitting around on plastic chairs.

This would go a long way to ensuring that drivers are actually driving and doing something productive while a few warehouse staff on £13 an hour can unload the trailers while the previous one’s on its way back to the supplier.

I think the wage rate must be advertised as £20 an hour for example, this would be the minimum rate paid and would most likely be enough to get bums on seats especially if they know that they’d be paid £30 an hour to be hanging around.

I’d imagine this would not help fill multidrop vacancies but I (personally) hate them so much that I’d expect at least £25 an hour for them. Perhaps decent factory fitted sat navs for these with pre populated destinations added would make these a bit less tedious at least.

There’s been a lot of talk about the relaxations of drivers hours recently and I thought perhaps drivers would be willing to do for instance four days of upto 11 hours driving per day provided there’s little other work. I personally think four 14 hour spreads maximum in a week (four days work only) would be preferable to doing five nine hour drives. Less commuting for one thing.
Would also like to see something like a ban on starting more than 3 hours earlier or later the following day and no 24 hour reduced weekly rests.
Think there needs to be better use of technology to for instance request collection of a load and have the details to be sent to a driver when the vehicle is stationary (or must be soon if a break is soon due) so they can accept them rather than running empty.

2

No company in their right minds are going to pay a driver for waiting around, essentially paying them more for not working than they are for working.
Having to wait around is not the fault of the driver, it’s the fault of the site for not tipping them quicker. The best and easiest way to fix this is for more companies to start charging demurrage. This hardly ever happens with retail sites or RDCs, so they know they can keep people waiting for ages

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3

Yes it’s irritating because they all advertise an ‘‘up to XXXXX p.a.’’ salary rather than an hourly rate for each type of work (day/night/OT/BH/Weekend) and let people calculate an approximate realistic annual income for themselves. Far as I’m aware no one can force you to do OT yet companies seem to calculate it into the advertised salaries. That’s the sort of scuminess I’d expect from an agency

4

Terry Cooksey:
No company in their right minds are going to pay a driver for waiting around, essentially paying them more for not working than they are for working.
Having to wait around is not the fault of the driver, it’s the fault of the site for not tipping them quicker. The best and easiest way to fix this is for more companies to start charging demurrage. This hardly ever happens with retail sites or RDCs, so they know they can keep people waiting for ages

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Perhaps if they were to say we’re changing £100 an hour demurrage it would focus the minds of the RDC management somewhat. Also if the government could turn around and say drivers MUST be paid time and a half or even double time when hanging around (they do after all need extra taxes to pay for all that furlough most of us didn’t have). It would help prevent the shops from running out of bog roll if they were actually driving instead of watching homes under the hammer in the waiting room…

5

It is anticompetitive and against the principles of the “free market” for businesses to “fix” prices.
It’s actually illegal under UK law.
gov.uk/cartels-price-fixing … ame%20time
.
Anyone can charge demurrage at any rate they agree under contract. They can’t “fix it” amongst themselves first.
There are arguments for having minimum rates for some jobs, but they probably won’t get much traction here and now.

6

There are plenty of rules that if got around - would actually make life worse for drivers, rather than better.

“10 hours maximum on nights” for example: So all 12 hour night shifts at your unionized workplace - automatically go out to agency…
Not good if you are a full timer trying to up their income with a spot of overtime eh?

“In the crap if you take your first break 6hrs 5mins into your duty”
… It isn’t this rule that is the problem, but rather Acting Managers who use it as an excuse to penalize people they dont like, whenever it suits them.

“Cannot drive over 4.5hrs without a break/More than 10 hours driving twice a week/take less than 9 hours reduced rest no more than 3 times per week”.

These rules - have already been suspended by the government, despite the fact that such an overrule puts both driver and public in danger, and of course opens up the employer abuse possibility of Salaried Working Weeks in excess of 48 hours, already around in plenty of places before the Lockdown even!
Sensible drivers will stick to the 4.5hrs etc rules, and ignore the government’s attempts, especially London Council - to make formerly illegal and dangerous acts “somehow OK for the time being”. :imp:

New rules we could DO with:

Maximum salaried hours - 48 in Law, including break times. Thus, if a firm doesn’t pay for breaks, they cannot then run you ragged doing 84 hour weeks using POA and unpaid breaks to effectively get out of paying you whilst “wheels ain’t turning”…

Overtime - must be a minimum of time and a half. NO “SIngle time” or even “Short Time” for working beyond one’s contracted hours.

Wages that are based on turnstile entry to turnstile exit. The Turnstile has been used to clock people in and out for yonks - and that data is recorded to dock people when they are late - so why not have it to pay people when they are clearly present as well then?

No shift starts allowed between 22:00 and 04:00 that involve driving in morning rush hour traffic tired.

A shift time starting at say, 23:00 MUST then be a duty that has some driving at the start, up until say, 04:00 and then have you doing some non-driving work back at base for the remainder of the shift… No such duties need doing at such a time? - Simples: Stop the dangerous-to-the-public Graveyard Shift patterns then, and leave it to the early doors starts to do the early morning rush hour drives…!

First hour of breaks to be paid per shift, any extra breaks may be docked. Working more than 12 hour shift - entitles one to 90 minutes of paid breaks rather than the base hour.

Let “Overtime” be based on extra hours on a shift one is already attending, rather than having to make an extra journey for say, a short shift that costs in commute, and increases carbon footprint doing say, six shifts per week instead of 4 with 3 hours overtime per day on them…

Move back to weekly pay, rather than this monthly lark, where cashflow issues starting a new job in particular - are legion!
It is somewhat irritating hearing agencies tout as a “Job Perk” We pay Weekly here!