Do many TNUK’rs know the difference between an employment agency & an employment business?
There are differences & they are important.
If you haven’t already, it might be worthwhile to Google & read up on info from a few respected sources.
I feel that most of the grief & turmoil being vented on here about agencies is by people who are on zero hours contracts with an employment business. Employment business’s are by far the most common type of angency that drivers within the transport industry are likely to be working for, they are also commonly confused with employment agencies to the extent that most of their target market simply doesn’t know that many important differences exists !
You are right, but in fairness the employment businesses who are touting for HGV drivers on what is little more than a casual basis don’t exactly go out of their way to advise said drivers that they aren’t quite an agency.
In other circles ‘employment agencies’ often fulfil a very different role to the parasitic activities of the HGV driver ‘agency’.
Olog Hai:
You are right, but in fairness the employment businesses who are touting for HGV drivers on what is little more than a casual basis don’t exactly go out of their way to advise said drivers that they aren’t quite an agency.
In other circles ‘employment agencies’ often fulfil a very different role to the parasitic activities of the HGV driver ‘agency’.
I think it is time that TNUK starts to act in the drivers interests or it should stop calling itself a drivers forum.
This is exactly the sort of thing we should be talking about. It’s employment business’s, born from employment agencies, that are in the process of destroying the job as we know it.
If we let them, then anything other than a zero hours contract paying minimum wage will be an exception to the normal.
The ‘grief and turmoil’,that you see on here ,has nothing to do with the difference between an employment business or an agency.It’s the blatant lying, cheating ,dishonest sharp underhanded practices,that even the politicians and MPs,cant ,or wont stoop to.
zeddman:
The ‘grief and turmoil’,that you see on here ,has nothing to do with the difference between an employment business or an agency.It’s the blatant lying, cheating ,dishonest sharp underhanded practices,that even the politicians and MPs,cant ,or wont stoop to.
Blatant lying, cheating, dishonest, sharp & underhanded practices are allowed to exist by our politicians because it all plays a small part in the overall agenda. Do you think that someone clever enough to fool the electorate into being elected is also stupid enough to be fooled themselve’s?
The laws surrounding employment agencies & employment business’s are many & complex, how is a simple driver expected to know & understand them?
Perhaps TNUK could promote what the differences are ?
Are not the HMRC clamping down on firms that “say” their drivers are “employed” with them, but are in fact zero hours self-employed “clients” of the firm themselves?
With such firms, rates are negotiable after all. It is possible to deliberately try and price yourself out of the market, so you don’t pick up some crappy shift miles away - but you end up being offered something like £15ph to commute to London, duly get paid it, but only book a flat 8 shift which still hardly makes it worth while.
The biggest lie is the firm that rings you every damned day offering you a job miles away at a crappy rate - just to make sure you don’t work for another firm in the meantime. A “pledge” of a shift counts to them as if they’ve actually booked you on there already… So what happens? - You turn down a few closer jobs for the same money, or even more money - then the liar shift gets cancelled at the last minute, because in fact it never existed. You were only phoned to ascertain your “availability” rather than to actually be rock-solid booked onto a job.
Negotiable hourly rates? - Plenty of room for lies there, especially with the “overtime after 8 hours” dodge. You’ll end up being booked into somewhere with the MAX shift you’ll get is 9 hours, which minus an unpaid meal break, means you get no higher rate… How many have fallen for the “£6.50ph for the first 8 hours, £25.00ph for overtime (eg this coming sunday & Monday), which is anything over 8 hours paid”… The average hourly rate well into the teens will be touted to get you to sign up with this firm… But on the payslip it will always be hours @ £6.50 because the shift long enough to incur the high rate never happens. Oh I’ve tried “hanging it out” to qualify, but what do you do when your job for the entire day is shuttling back and forth to some local yard less than 5 miles away? - Can’t use the “got stuck in traffic” excuse… The end result? - You’ve just worked a sunday/bank holiday for near on minimum wage… Even Nobbies advertise in the job centre “Job pays ABOVE minimum wage”. Yeh, like my feet are way above the ground when I stand in my socks. 
Best way to play it is to give a new firm you’ve signed up to ONE week to give you some decent work - even if only a single shift that first week.
NO booking means it’s pretty much always going to be as unreliable. Avoid. Keep trying other firms until you find someone that plays it straight, and wants to recruit and retain their drivers - merely by them doing what is says on the tin.
In this regard, firms that specialise in C+E work are going to be more reliable than firms that also staff for office temps, warehouses, etc. 
Chas:
Do many TNUK’rs know the difference between an employment agency & an employment business?
There are differences & they are important.
If you haven’t already, it might be worthwhile to Google & read up on info from a few respected sources.
I feel that most of the grief & turmoil being vented on here about agencies is by people who are on zero hours contracts with an employment business. Employment business’s are by far the most common type of angency that drivers within the transport industry are likely to be working for, they are also commonly confused with employment agencies to the extent that most of their target market simply doesn’t know that many important differences exists !
A shower of thieves and bandits whichever way you look at it, look at the root cause, the reason why the job is ****** and agencies will come in the top 5 reasons.
drivers are themselves to blame for all of industry problems
dont like agency staff at your place of work ? fine go and strike and dont work till the company stops using ageny staff ■■? oh no drivers will not do that will they as there scared they might lose there job
dont like the changes to what happening in driving overall like the cpc card or camera in the cab or smoking bans in the cab
stand up to the company but no your all to scared to take any sort of action but will moan away about whos fault it is
its the drivers fault for not standing up together just imagine how many more full time jobs would be on the table without agencys as they need there loads moving and not stood still
i do hope one day that drivers will finally snap and all refuse to work for a week or 2 lost wages in the long run you would move this industry back to how it should be more pay more full time real jobs
drivers really dont know how important there job is as it affects everything in the whole country without drivers the uk would stop and for this important role your paid not much more than min wage, get crap from the boss get crap from vosa get crap from the police get crap from the depots all around the country when you just want to deliver, you have to work long hours to make a bit better money than a factory worker
and now your going to be in competition between foreign drivers
just what is it going to take before driver say enough is enough and take some action
i promise you if drivers stopped work for just 2 weeks then things would all change as quick as a flash
sometimes i wish we had the back bone of the french
Warning: extreme newbie here. Sounds like drivers need a union. Desypete, you fancy being pres?
Sumsmeister:
Warning: extreme newbie here. Sounds like drivers need a union. Desypete, you fancy being pres?
lol i would get shot down as a trouble making big gob sadly. but i do hope one day drivers wake up and stand together but for some reason there scared of taking the action, instead of feeling confident of the power drivers really have
in 2 weeks the country would come to a complete stop if there was no lorries moving and no one in the world would ever want that and they way i see it is that to advert such action. things would change over night for the drivers
my prediction for the future of the driving industry is that all transport desk will have polish speakers on them or other reps from other country’s who send over mass drivers
more and more englsih drivers will lose there jobs and will get no dole money unless they agree to go over to poland and drive trucks for there benefit money as there will be a driver shortage over there and as part of europe we will be forced to take up and job no matter where it is : )
wages will creep down by way of freezing them. we will all be fighting over the well paid jobs at asda for trolly collecting
your kids will have no chance of employment unless there willing to move over to other country’s were wages are lower as the jobs that should be here for your kids will be taken over by foreigners
in short something will finaly push drivers to far that i am sure of it may take many years yet but the way its going non of my above claims are not that far fetched
Irrespective of whatever technical terminologies exist, drivers always focus on the agencies, but seldom the parasitic hauliers that think they can just click their fingers and some muppet will come running at zero notice for perhaps one days work in a month.
Harsh reality is that many ‘non direct employed’ drivers tend to get infrequent work, irrespective of the terminology used… 
Problem is drivers are to selfish to look after themselves
Or put another way they won’t look after each other in order to look after them self’s
As sais, if haulage/transport companies took on enough drivers to get the job done properly, and paid them a decent wage for keeping the company going, then agencies would not exist as they do now.
