1st October 2011 A new light in the gloomy world of Agency Driving?
Some agencies are complying, getting Agency Drivers on the same rate as a ‘full timer’ Good News! We do the same job, only right we get the same pay!
The Co-op on the other hand, famous for ‘Fair-Trade’ and ‘ethical’ work, Eh… NO!! 
The Co-operative food depot at Newhouse, The current agency rates are £8ph days and £10.50 OT Pathetic!!
So Now, with these new regulations they have ADR supplying all their drivers from various 3rd party agencies in the area, The Co-op have decided to give the middle finger to every agency worker who works there.
Not only have they said they are not paying for the increase, they have made ADR (agency) get the drivers to sign a contract of employment for 1.2 hrs a week ( the sweedish derogation model ) making them exempt from the rules.
The Greedy Robbin [zb]!
Anybody else with any AWR problems?
Whats co ops sunday rate for it’s perm drivers? 
pavaroti:
Whats co ops sunday rate for it’s perm drivers?
They are all on different rates, Earlies, Backshift, Nightshits, Class 1 and Class 2.
Salary is on average around £35k pa class 1.
Just wondering as i do sundays at the co op agency rate £11.
Speaking to a Class 2 co op driver 5 years a go and he said he was on over a tenner basic.
pavaroti:
Just wondering as i do sundays at the co op agency rate £11.
Speaking to a Class 2 co op driver 5 years a go and he said he was on over a tenner basic.
Oh Aye, mair than likely Mate!!
My other major gripe is that Agencies have flooded the market with themselves, have you ever searched Recruitment Agencies in Yell.com for Motherwell area, there are 10 PAGES of them!! 
The rates are being hammered down year after year, I was on £8 ph 5 yrs ago and it’s still the same rate!! I now work nights to try and get a bit more money, NOW that’s been dropped to £9 ph. £9!! NIGHTSHIFT!!
So I have gone self employed to bring it back up to £10 but I have to pay my own tax, nat ins, etc. which the agencies think it makes me exempt from the AWR, THINK AGAIN!!
Self employed drivers are ONLY self employed for tax purposes only, They are still included in the AWR!!! 
Tribunals are already gearing up for loads of hearings related to the AWR.
WATCH THIS SPACE!?!?!
Snackus, Dont go agency driving to get rich, it wont work mate!
The only hope for any drivers, if they`re young enough, i reckon is to be patient. The good times MAY come back around.
The people way above us are trying all they can to dissuade any young person to even consider a career in hgv driving.
Try telling a young gun of 21 to find £2500-£3000 and try and get an HGV licence and then if he manages that and then if he gets a job (unlikely), hell get about £7/8.00P/H!!!! Hell laugh in your face.
Also the DCPC makes it more unattractive for the older drivers like me. (I have no intention of doing it), so my theory is…there`ll be one almighty shortage in the future which, should put the money up. In theory!!
When youre out just have a look in other cabs at the age of the drivers. Have a guess what the average age is! Were gonna retire soon!!! Itll all be yours! (Ive got 8 years to go).
Stick with it. My lads a driver, hes 26 and Im hoping he`ll be ok.
It’s just reinforcing agency bods inferiority complex, the likes of co op and sainsbury paying a much lesser rate than perm drivers. Hard to see it changing. I think these new contracts are bullet proof so no court cases, the supermarkets are just to powerfull.
Snackus Barricus:
pavaroti:
Just wondering as i do sundays at the co op agency rate £11.
Speaking to a Class 2 co op driver 5 years a go and he said he was on over a tenner basic.
Oh Aye, mair than likely Mate!!
My other major gripe is that Agencies have flooded the market with themselves, have you ever searched Recruitment Agencies in Yell.com for Motherwell area, there are 10 PAGES of them!!
The rates are being hammered down year after year, I was on £8 ph 5 yrs ago and it’s still the same rate!! I now work nights to try and get a bit more money, NOW that’s been dropped to £9 ph. £9!! NIGHTSHIFT!!
So I have gone self employed to bring it back up to £10 but I have to pay my own tax, nat ins, etc. which the agencies think it makes me exempt from the AWR, THINK AGAIN!!
Self employed drivers are ONLY self employed for tax purposes only, They are still included in the AWR!!!
Tribunals are already gearing up for loads of hearings related to the AWR.
WATCH THIS SPACE!?!?!
Not being pedantic, but, also you pay your own tax and N.I. when you`re employed. Nobody pays it for you.
Well ok, you have to physically hand the money over, but you pay less tax and you pay less n.i.
The only thing you lose out on is the holiday pay. But, your £1 an hour better off, so, say, 50 weeks at 40 hrs (+£40)= £2000!!
Its a no brainer. Unless they`re paying you £2000 a year holiday pay.
Its not rocket surgery.
cheekymonkey:
Snackus, Dont go agency driving to get rich, it wont work mate!
The only hope for any drivers, if they`re young enough, i reckon is to be patient. The good times MAY come back around.
The people way above us are trying all they can to dissuade any young person to even consider a career in hgv driving.
Try telling a young gun of 21 to find £2500-£3000 and try and get an HGV licence and then if he manages that and then if he gets a job (unlikely), hell get about £7/8.00P/H!!!! Hell laugh in your face.
Also the DCPC makes it more unattractive for the older drivers like me. (I have no intention of doing it), so my theory is…there`ll be one almighty shortage in the future which, should put the money up. In theory!!
When youre out just have a look in other cabs at the age of the drivers. Have a guess what the average age is! Were gonna retire soon!!! Itll all be yours! (Ive got 8 years to go).
Stick with it. My lads a driver, hes 26 and Im hoping he`ll be ok.
add that to the fact that car drivers who passed their test in or after 97 can’t drive a 7.5 tonner is sooner or later, going to start to make a massive dent
stevie
Hi Snackus…I to have a son driving…Id hoped these new regs would have made more proper jobs available...looks like theyve found the loophole they were hoping for…
…Im not sure the self employed for tax purposeswill wash with the taxman...it was outlawed in the building trade many moons ago and theumbrella schemeswere due be investigated prior to the last budget so we were told..so maybe in your favour if you werepusheddown that route ...It will take abloody minded individual to take them on in court....if you are that man id gladly chuck £100 into the fighting fund pot…I see too many young uns having to go agency to get any type of job in any type of employment,not just transport, it all stinks and gives no hope to the younger generation.
Agencies do have their place…to provide short term cover for unseen circumstances and their workers should be paid at premium rates due to the hit and miss nature of that type of work.
They should not be the main provider of labour to the transport or any other industry!!!
apologies for the rant but they do take the urine!!!
cheekymonkey:
Snackus, Dont go agency driving to get rich, it wont work mate!
The only hope for any drivers, if they`re young enough, i reckon is to be patient. The good times MAY come back around.
The people way above us are trying all they can to dissuade any young person to even consider a career in hgv driving.
Try telling a young gun of 21 to find £2500-£3000 and try and get an HGV licence and then if he manages that and then if he gets a job (unlikely), hell get about £7/8.00P/H!!!! Hell laugh in your face.
Also the DCPC makes it more unattractive for the older drivers like me. (I have no intention of doing it), so my theory is…there`ll be one almighty shortage in the future which, should put the money up. In theory!!
When youre out just have a look in other cabs at the age of the drivers. Have a guess what the average age is! Were gonna retire soon!!! Itll all be yours! (Ive got 8 years to go).
Stick with it. My lads a driver, hes 26 and Im hoping he`ll be ok.
the eastern euros will keep the rate down,and there`s nothing we can do coz if you speak out you get labelled a racist…or get censored
commonrail:
cheekymonkey:
Snackus, Dont go agency driving to get rich, it wont work mate!
The only hope for any drivers, if they`re young enough, i reckon is to be patient. The good times MAY come back around.
The people way above us are trying all they can to dissuade any young person to even consider a career in hgv driving.
Try telling a young gun of 21 to find £2500-£3000 and try and get an HGV licence and then if he manages that and then if he gets a job (unlikely), hell get about £7/8.00P/H!!!! Hell laugh in your face.
Also the DCPC makes it more unattractive for the older drivers like me. (I have no intention of doing it), so my theory is…there`ll be one almighty shortage in the future which, should put the money up. In theory!!
When youre out just have a look in other cabs at the age of the drivers. Have a guess what the average age is! Were gonna retire soon!!! Itll all be yours! (Ive got 8 years to go).
Stick with it. My lads a driver, hes 26 and Im hoping he`ll be ok.
the eastern euros will keep the rate down,and there`s nothing we can do coz if you speak out you get labelled a racist…or get censored
Someone posted a thread the other day about a story that the Army are making 800 of its soldiers who are Drivers redundant, they will be pretty young and will be qualified to the hilt with all the modern qualifications. They will all be looking for work and I would imagine a high percentage of them will be looking at Class 1 work. So if its difficult to get into work at the moment I believe its only going to become more fierce this year.
I can’t see any benefit whatsoever for drivers out of this swedish derogation thing.
So drivers get equal rights after 12 weeks? Well guess what, the agencies will just not employ you for 12 weeks on the spin. The whole thing is too damned easy to get around, and drivers signing up even get asked to sign the derogation which is like “Company policy is that we need you to sign off permission for us to fiddle you so we can get around the rules at this agency”! 
A longer term solution might appear from an unexpected quarter however… At present, many firms are quite happy to employ people that can barely speak English because they’ll work for less. What is not so obvious is that for the time being it is also CHEAP to have insurance against these people causing more damage & other liabilities than home drivers. This is unlikely to continue in the long run, as insurers sooner or later will get wise to the large amount of claims coming from foreigner-heavy firms who’ve done things like wasted a load because they can’t read the road signs, misunderstand their instructions, or just don’t do the job properly as a result of unfamilliarity with the UK.
When an employer is finally told “It’ll cost you 10 times as much to insure a foreign driver than a UK one” then we will of course see the wheel turn the other way, as foreign drivers return home abroad, leaving us to pick up the market which of course will suddenly be short of quality staff.
The market is ALREADY short of quality staff in my book, but cheap insurance means the firm doesn’t care, and is happy to employ someone near minimum wage even if the “drop trailer on nose” rate and other such faults goes through the roof!
It is therefore the (lack of) availability of cheap insurance in the future that will bring about the changes we UK drivers want to see in our own labour market.
If AIG had been allowed to collapse 3 years back, we’d already be there - yet another move by the financial world (bailing them out, and stitching us up in the process by insulating us from upward market forces upon wages) that did nothing for the ground worker except prolong our agony all for their own ends…
Hear endeth the first lesson/ 
Stuff the poles they have a hell hole country ( ive been) and made ours a unworkable hole unless you want 6 quid a hour. The only shifts i get offerd off a few agenceys is coop newhouse and i refuse it constent bexause if iam not a perm employee with no rights i expect more cash not less but drivers bring it on ourselfs because no one has the stones to back each other up. Haulage is dead and we are going down with it.
Winseer:
I can’t see any benefit whatsoever for drivers out of this swedish derogation thing.
That’s kinda the point of it.
The agency i work for opted out and said if we did not sign the new contract then the companies we work for would not give them the work so basicaly we had no option but to sign it as no work equals no money maybe things will get bet as a previous poster said that age of all the drivers are getting on in years the majority at the sites where i work all appear to be in their 60.s but i suspect that the agencys will just recruit more foreign labour to cover the shortfall if their is one with the amount of companies going bust.also has anyone noticed that nearly all rdc and fruit packers all employ agency staff and all from our comrades across the water.
I know for a fact that the agency I use will send in EU nationals if they can because (1) they will always maximise hours for themselves & the agency & (2) they are happy to sign any contract that is put in front of them. A TM that I know is tearing his hair out because of this - he’s even asked for me by name and the agency has lied, saying I’m not available. Needless to say I’m not doing agency work at the moment, no great loss for me, but infuriating all the same.
My son’s agency has a verbal agreement with a core of drivers to rotate them between contracts to get around the AWR. The agency don’t want to go down the Swedish route, the employers are happy to get decent drivers, (they have actually upped the rates marginally to try & keep things sweet) and the drivers get to keep the flexibility. Essentially they are just ignoring the AWR but as long as everyone’s happy then all’s well & good. It’s a pity it has to work like this, I’m all but-retired from it thank goodness but my lad really wants to carry on being an LGV driver and even he is now starting to look outside the industry.
You dont need to shop at that Store.
Find out who looks most after his Drivers and shop there.
I got 6 hour last wek.So im going to Aldi shopping.Its the only Solution where i leave right now.
Dont know if Aldi pays more Fair
The agency I am with for the last 6 months plus are either ignoring my emails or something
I do not know where I stand with either the company I am working at or even the agency
Since these regs came out, I have worked for the same company apart for around 4 weeks, where supposed to be no work, apart from a self transfer from Peterborough to Sherburn, I have worked at the same company and same agency
Nothing has been said to me regards to anything at all, basically since the regs came in, i have had probably on average 3 days work per week
Does anyone know where I stand with both the agency and company? what rights am I supposed to have (if any)
I did sign on with one agency last week, and told they can only employ me for 12 weeks only unless I go LTD or umbrella, which to me is a mockery of what the AWR is all about. loads of work came thru thou (not - none at all)
I like many agency workers, only want a full time position not all the mess about with agency muck ups
A lot of agencies are going to go under at the end of March I reckon. They’ve cheesed off so many people who’ve since moved to other firms that when the work picks up large, they’ll not have any staff to tender out! Client then goes to the agency that’s picked all the staff off over the lean weeks we’re in at present…
If 100 agencies have 100 staff each on their books - there are NOT 10,000 LGV drivers to place into the 2500 vacancies that might exist on a typical march week… There might be 2000 “mobile workers” and another 1000 ltd company/self employed types. 2500 therefore get jobs, only 500 get left high and dry. Now fast forward to Easter, and another 1000 jobs (albeit “temp”) have been added. Which firms are going to find out they can’t get a driver at any price, 'cos the entire agency bookload has been tendered out already?! 
Opening an agency these days must be like opening the 97th fish and chip shop in your local seaside town! 