thetastytrucker:
lovegod:
Can someone shed any light on why agency pay rates have basically stayed the same for the past 10 years■■?
SO which towns pay the better rates around that neighbourhood then? 
mastesallan:
. . . also get out and go around knocking on doors leaving them your details and rates that you charge so that they can cut out the middleman.
day rates £10.00ph
night rates £12.00ph
weekend rates £14.00ph
nightout rate £20.00ph
terms and conditions simple - payable in 7 days from invoice.
Who decides the rate that I should be willing to work for?
If those are the rates that you’re proposing to local haulage firms after cutting out the middleman they should be snapping your hand off.
Stan
mastesallan:
cheekymonkey:
Possibly too many agencies as well. Theyre all after the work. Same as us, if they stick out for more money they wont get the contacts.
Yes, time n a half is virtually extinct these days. But thats also the case for employed drivers. At least on the agency you usually get some extra for w/ends which a lot of employeds don`t.We are where we are, and things aint going to change. Maximise your daily/hours, slow down!. Get self-employed and get Flat-Rate VAT registered to max your earnings from every job. It really adds up over the year.
You’re spot on about going self employed register with 4 or 5 agencies also get out and go around knocking on doors leaving them your details and rates that you charge so that they can cut out the middleman.
day rates £10.00ph
night rates £12.00ph
weekend rates £14.00ph
nightout rate £20.00ph
terms and conditions simple - payable in 7 days from invoice.
so thats £32 ph on nights then ■■?
Me and the lads at the place where I work have approached the agency about getting a rate rise, we got told it’ll be discussed with the client, we’re not holding our breath, but hope something might come out of it.
The agency did say that it’s down to the client if we get a raise or not, we told them that’s rubbish as we work for you so we are asking you for a raise.
Say an agency pays £9 p/h, what would they be charging a client roughly??
Winseer:
thetastytrucker:
lovegod:
Can someone shed any light on why agency pay rates have basically stayed the same for the past 10 years■■?
SO which towns pay the better rates around that neighbourhood then?
one in the middle! 
hitlers favourite place 
1.2million zlotti an hour! 
syramax:
day rates £10.00ph
night rates £12.00ph
weekend rates £14.00ph
nightout rate £20.00ph
terms and conditions simple - payable in 7 days from invoice.
so thats £32 ph on nights then ■■?
[/quote]
no £20 a night out, aka sleeping in the tin box! 
then p1s$ it up the wall in the truckstop!
mac12:
andy12:
Truckulent:
'cos many drivers are daft enough work for it.(Thats all very well in an ideal world but if you have to put food on the table and pay the rent/mortgage then been daft as you so put it, is the only option!
But if nobody did the work at low rates would the job not get done or would the rate go up.
I turn all work down that pays less than my required rate, which is what I choose to set. It’s not the highest in the world but it’s reasonable or people wouldn’t be happy to pay it.
I still put food on table. I just work fewer hours to do it.
selby newcomer:
Me and the lads at the place where I work have approached the agency about getting a rate rise, we got told it’ll be discussed with the client, we’re not holding our breath, but hope something might come out of it.The agency did say that it’s down to the client if we get a raise or not, we told them that’s rubbish as we work for you so we are asking you for a raise.
Say an agency pays £9 p/h, what would they be charging a client roughly??
When i was working for a builders merchant during 2011, the “Driver Hire” class 2 hiab driver was on £7ph flat rate, the agency charged £16ph for his services.
Fatboy slimslow:
Winseer:
thetastytrucker:
lovegod:
Can someone shed any light on why agency pay rates have basically stayed the same for the past 10 years■■?
SO which towns pay the better rates around that neighbourhood then?
one in the middle!
Are we talking about Åódźamoney here then? 
roadrunner:
selby newcomer:
Me and the lads at the place where I work have approached the agency about getting a rate rise, we got told it’ll be discussed with the client, we’re not holding our breath, but hope something might come out of it.The agency did say that it’s down to the client if we get a raise or not, we told them that’s rubbish as we work for you so we are asking you for a raise.
Say an agency pays £9 p/h, what would they be charging a client roughly??
When i was working for a builders merchant during 2011, the “Driver Hire” class 2 hiab driver was on £7ph flat rate, the agency charged £16ph for his services.
so it sounds like there’s plenty of money put on top of the hourly rate which they could dip into to give us a rate rise, I don’t expect them to do it, but if you don’t ask you don’t get.
this dupol company who are controlling the rates don’t help the situation at all, too many people making money of an agency drivers back 
roadrunner:
selby newcomer:
Me and the lads at the place where I work have approached the agency about getting a rate rise, we got told it’ll be discussed with the client, we’re not holding our breath, but hope something might come out of it.The agency did say that it’s down to the client if we get a raise or not, we told them that’s rubbish as we work for you so we are asking you for a raise.
Say an agency pays £9 p/h, what would they be charging a client roughly??
When i was working for a builders merchant during 2011, the “Driver Hire” class 2 hiab driver was on £7ph flat rate, the agency charged £16ph for his services.
I don’t for one minute dispute your figures but that does seem an awfully big mark up. I’m surprised another agency didn’t come in and undercut that, after all the companies that use agencies owe no alliegence to the agencies.
I work for an agency at the moment and know for a fact that the small family run agency we used to work for made between 1 and 2 pound per hour on top of our wages. The new agency came in and put a cheaper bid in hoping to pay us a flat rate, when all 80 of us threatened to walk they backed down and consequently pay us more than they charge after 8 hours!
Of course this can’t last, so we’re expecting changes no doubt. But until then we’ll make hay while the sun shines.
selby newcomer:
this dupol company who are controlling the rates don’t help the situation at all, too many people making money of an agency drivers back
Stan
the maoster:
roadrunner:
selby newcomer:
Me and the lads at the place where I work have approached the agency about getting a rate rise, we got told it’ll be discussed with the client, we’re not holding our breath, but hope something might come out of it.The agency did say that it’s down to the client if we get a raise or not, we told them that’s rubbish as we work for you so we are asking you for a raise.
Say an agency pays £9 p/h, what would they be charging a client roughly??
When i was working for a builders merchant during 2011, the “Driver Hire” class 2 hiab driver was on £7ph flat rate, the agency charged £16ph for his services.
I don’t for one minute dispute your figures but that does seem an awfully big mark up. I’m surprised another agency didn’t come in and undercut that, after all the companies that use agencies owe no alliegence to the agencies.
I work for an agency at the moment and know for a fact that the small family run agency we used to work for made between 1 and 2 pound per hour on top of our wages. The new agency came in and put a cheaper bid in hoping to pay us a flat rate, when all 80 of us threatened to walk they backed down and consequently pay us more than they charge after 8 hours!
Of course this can’t last, so we’re expecting changes no doubt. But until then we’ll make hay while the sun shines.
Those figures came straight from the T.M’s mouth, i was being nosey, Driver Hire were the sole approved vendor across all of the U.K depots, that was the reason given for not “kicking the ball about” so to speak (a bit foolhardy i personally thought, when nowadays firms change agency more than their own underwear to save a quid). The one driver named “John” was the only guy they would occasionally use for holiday/illness cover and when short of drivers through the busy summer peak, very smart and efficient he was too a very pleasant chap indeed, whom everyone liked and got on with just like one of the lads, he covered mainly for one of the permies aptly named “Tony Two drops” i.e give him more than two drops and he would march into the T.M’s office and kick off in a big way (ex- squaddie and pub fighter type), John would do two local runs of four to six drops each, so it was perhaps in the firms interest to pay the extortionate rates to secure John’s services for the days runs.
thetastytrucker:
lovegod:
Can someone shed any light on why agency pay rates have basically stayed the same for the past 10 years■■?
I fixed that for you.
Now, where is my hard hat… 
Winseer:
There is a glut of “any old drivers” but a shortage of fussy, highly skilled ones who might otherwise have pushed wages higher, if they were not swamped under by the “no speake english/dodgy licence/brudder background” brigade, who of course continue to get the job over those that won’t run bent, won’t work for less than a tenner per hour, and will blow the whistle on any yard gangster practices they are appalled to come across.(
I can agree with you to some extend, but not in everything.
There is still lot of companies, who would like to get a proper driver, even if they have to pay more. I used to work for a small agency, and I had (under condition that I’ll keep it to myself) paid much better rate than other drivers - and I was sent to these better places only, or sometimes to places with loads of handball where nobody else wanted to work.
I don’t understand why most agencies have to pay same rates to everyone? I know, they got various deals with their customers, they should be able to have various deals with their drivers? For sure if I am doing my job well and take care of the vehicle, I am worth more than someone, who is going to smash the gatehouse in pieces on first attempt to leave the yard?
But from the other side - if we know that everyone earns X, we know, that nobody undercuts each other…
What would be the best solutions? Maybe to set rule that minimum payment has to be known to everyone, and what you made on the top of that, stays between you and your employer?
In the summer or 2011, I was dropped for a block of work in favour of an immigrant who’d been taken on for £2.85ph less pay.
On day 2 of the 13 week block, he dropped a trailer on it’s nose, and I was re-offered the work BUT at droppit’s rate of pay, rather than mine.
I asked for an honouring of my original contract, but was still not considered “good enough” with “my tender”. Experience, Clean licence, spotless RTA record counts for nought. ‘How low can you pitch your hourly rate’ is all they cared about.
Another (this time self-employed) individual picked up the work (sole trader) and this guy apparently got “hijacked” whilst in a layby 2 weeks on.
A bit suspicious, that he didn’t have his head kicked in, etc. from the ‘attack’, and the load that was stolen just happened to be the highest value one for about 3 weeks - Baccy - despite it being in an unmarked vehicle on a discretionary route…
I never did pick up a contract with that firm, and I guess I never will. The insurances must still be paying out no quibble to the firm’s high-liability practices I guess. 
As I’ve said many times before - things won’t get better in the transport business until INSURANCE companies refuse to cover certain liabilities any more.
This includes Self-Employed’s personal liability insurance especially. 
Meanwhile, I imagine more and more firms will find themselves bled dry by the ever-increasing liabilities such as “shrinkage”, with third-party drivers losing out on their jobs, because the revenues have gone west…
the agency rates have stayed the same in road transport cos no one had the balls to stand up and question it cos of some obscure euro directive no doubt. agencies pay what they can get away with end of, they gotta line their pockets somehow
whereas the english construction staff just said pay us more or we’ll go work for ourselves elsewhere that’s the big, big difference most other trades people work for themselves - even on agency - you go on some sites and if the staff don’t like what they’re seeing then they go elsewhere - plenty of people want work doing for them - also there’s sooooo many houses that need building that we’re never going to be too short of work again - the recession will end later this year and my rates will go back to where they were in 2007.
i tell the agency what i’m willing to work for and it’s up to them to say yes or no and it’s becoming more difficult for new drivers to get in as well cos unless you’re blue carded more than once (ie: done a blue card retest) you ain’t getting in a truck with any of the firms that i deal with which is why if you turn up on a job up north you’re more likely to find an english bod at the controls of the stacker
put simply if transport firms had a policy of employing english people in english jobs then there wouldn’t be the situation as it is - fair enough let them in so you don’t break the rules but they wouldn’t be able to work and wages would’ve stayed high.
also i wouldn’t bother getting out of bed for £7p/h it’s near as ■■■■ it minimum wage and that is just plain wrong. i just about consider it at £12p/h given that i’ve got to get there and back and provide my own ppe etc… it’s not worth it for anything less
So as you said the constitution workers were in demand and therefore have other options, truck drivers are not in demand compared to the supply. if the drivers say pay us more or we’re off, where are they going to go?
It’s nowt to do with balls, if the construction workers had no other work available then they would also get the take it or leave it offer.
Winseer:
A bit suspicious, that he didn’t have his head kicked in, etc. from the ‘attack’,
Well, if someone put me at gunpoint or there would be three well build fans of the american sport that is most popular in Europe with bats, I would not wait to have my head kicked but nicely give up to them, no matter if stuff was main or not, as I value my health more than any material goods. So actually this one is not an argument in my opinion.
we all have more than one skill set - most construction workers do — bricklayers that do joinery, plastering, laying concerete etc…
i said this to bonnie lass - you gotta get yourself more skills so that if you’re getting shut out by the prices you’ve already got a spare skill set that’ll pay what it is that you need to keep living.
i drive telehandlers first and foremost but i’ve got a class I in case (1) i want a change (2) in case the work dries out like it did a few years ago — it’s about giving yourself the most opportunities and not just in transport although i know hell of a lot of c/b flt operators that have class I and they staty in the warehouse cos they get as much if not more driving forks - average rates for warehouse forks where i live is just over £7p/h.