I drive for a main supplier of one of the main stores in uk.
WE have just been told as from 28/03 we will be working only 48hrs
Nice… but only getting 20p an hour pay rise A big drop of £100.00 + pounds per week (ie. NO periods of availability) time to move on■■? I am sure the wtd was supposed to help. ■■? 
I am sure the wtd was supposed to help
and who was it supposed to help 
certainly not the average driver 
there was alot of talk saying that the owner driver’s will not be affected by the wtd,i was talking to an o/d the other day ( thurs) and he was telling me if your an o/d with less than three ( 3) customers on your book’s then you also come under the scope of the wtd.
thought WRONGLY that the wtd was supposed to help drivers . ie less hours for no or little drop in pay. more of a life etc etc. but what now!!
Back to the real world.
I heard about owner drivers that they are still exempt till 2009.
(think this is what our firm are going to use , as they will have no drivrs left at this rate of pay. or is it just me missing something somewhere)
mentioned to her indoors bout cut backs etc. say s I U can sell the computer for a start… time to keep me head down…
I heard about owner drivers that they are still exempt till 2009.
yes but only if they have 3 customers and above on their books
thought WRONGLY that the wtd was supposed to help drivers . ie less hours for no or little drop in pay. more of a life etc etc. but what now!!
yes your correct in what you say m8,but it is on the term’s of the big wig’s in brussell’s 
did you get asked if you wanted to bring in the wtd i know i didn’t 
it is said that the wtd must not affect you financially 
somehow i can’t see it helping us financially at all.we’ll just need to wait and see what happen’s and how the lads/lassie’s on here will be affected in the month’s to come.i’m sure we will run a poll to see if it has or has not.i want to determine what hours i work not some guy from over the water.i’m sure i read somewhere on here that france and germany are going to opt out of the wtd 
does this mean that the uk drivers are getting used as guinea. pig’s don’t get me wrong here i’m all for less hour’s but please let me have that choice 
Did anyone who did over 48 hours per week honestly think you’d really get paid the same for doing less? Dont be ridiculous, not when theres hundreds, if not thousands of Poles, Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovaks and Hungarians clamering for any job they can get here, all quite legally and above board. The WTD will be the worst thing that ever happened for alot of drivers, I’m sure of that.
thats what i am saying our firm is using the wtd to cut our hours no p.o.a
i realise that they have to utilse us by doing drop/ drive wherever possible etc. but we end up flying about like headless chickens!!(well some of them will) all work with 100+ a week reduction in take home pay.
the firm is using the wtd as an excuse to cut our hours with 2 weeks notice
what now!!!
BIG CUT■■?
Well I am sorry to say that if your taking a cut, you were most likely doing too much in the 1st place!
Any driver employed working more than 48 hours before, and now complain have got the employers bug!
If you cannot earn enough, working less than 48 hours then we/you/us need to stop this silly game and refuse to drive. until we are paid the going rate.
The ok I am allright jack amongst us should be reading the polish/EU threads very carefully. money is the only thing that is indespensible,drivers are not.
Oh and for the Tory boys here, I have not drove a truck in 12 months! and it wasnt anybetter in fact worse when the witch was in control!
sorry to say this but anybody who thought they were going to get paid the same money for doing less hours is being a bit daft, 1. theres very little profit to made on one driver and one wagon so that moneys not there and 2. companies can simply employ more drivers to cover the shorter hours worked per driver.
the only people i can see who’ll benefit out of it are owner drivers like myself because it’s more profitable for firms to sub the work out now than it is to employ a driver full time and then see him only work 48 hours but still have all the paper work, holiday pay,sick pay,employers insurance etc to sort out for that driver.
paul b:
the only people i can see who’ll benefit out of it are owner drivers like myself because it’s more profitable for firms to sub the work out
Paul, looking forward (a few years, I admit) how do you envisage things will be for owner drivers when they are also subject to 48hr limits?
Do you still think OD’s will be the better option for firms to use or will the situation have gone full circle and their own drivers being the cheaper option?
Gentlemen & Ladies, if you read the rules correctly and interpret them
correctly okay instead of a 70hr+ week which many may have done,
you are now regulated to a 60hr week over a 17 week period. but read
the rules and digest , if your firm pays for all that is on the tacho then
by correctly useing the new regulations concerning POA you will be
able to do enough hours and have your rest. It requires logical thinking
on behalf of the employer and the employed, which in turn has to be
rewarded with a correct wage, all the firms have to do is pay POA
TIME which is a benifit to them and to the driver, This can be checked
useing timetables showing what the driver was doing, AS i read it POA
are not countted as working time therefore where is the problem.
When you are not driveing, working then you are either on rest or POA
IF a driver does a block rest of 8hrs at the end of a 16hr day then I
would pay for 15hrs with 1hr as lunch break what is wrong with that.
marcustandy:
paul b:
the only people i can see who’ll benefit out of it are owner drivers like myself because it’s more profitable for firms to sub the work outPaul, looking forward (a few years, I admit) how do you envisage things will be for owner drivers when they are also subject to 48hr limits?
Do you still think OD’s will be the better option for firms to use or will the situation have gone full circle and their own drivers being the cheaper option?
i can’t see it effecting owner drivers in anyway shape or form mainly because we’re not paid on an hourly rate and don’t have time sheets so who can say what hours i’ve worked? to me in 2009 they’ll be bringing in a regulation that can’t be implemented thats of coarse if the wtd is still alive and kicking in 2009? which i very much doubt.
for a start most owner drivers are not exempt…most of them work for one company…like my boss…he would only move if the work dropped off…but is not registered with any others…merely made enquiries…next…there will never be enough owner drivers to cover all the work that drivers seem to think will be given to them by their employers…and i cant see many drivers wanting to go out and buy themselves a truck just to please the employers…and themselves, if the germans and the french have opted out…then so can we…but i can see a lot of drivers disgruntled with the wtd…pack it in…and as we know there are plenty of others to take out places…but they cant possibly fill all the spaces…can they…as for a drop in wages…especially as shewn above £100…thats a big drop…and most people live by their means…that means putting them into debt…so be it…no one can take what they havnt got…just refer the begging letters to brussels…tell them they will pay…see what happens…failing that …join truckys …truckers union…and lets unite us all…nice thought eh!
i suppose its who you work for really and what there attitudes are …
it doesnt matter how big or small the company is …
myself tbh i have dropped pretty lucky …
moved jobs 5 wks ago the job i moved into was paying £1500 more and i have just read that i will be getting around about a £1860 pay rise
suits me fine … since we got first sniffs of the wtd i have prepared myself by cutting out overtime and living off a basic wage … i havent done any overtime for 14 mths …during that time i have got used to living off a basic wage so when the wtd comes in i havent lost anything , only gained …
By the time you’ve taken POA’s, breaks etc out of your 48 hour working week, I bet you’ll be getting closer to around 60 hours before it curtails your working week. Has anybody actually looked at the legislation (even the idiots guide to the WTD on TruckNet) before they’ve spouted off about the “48 hour” working week that’s been watered down so much it’s almost pointless?
Chilled in, if it were me and you and the other drivers want to work the extra, I would go and ask them to have a look at the regs before they loose most of their workforce, 'cause I know what I’d do in your position, go somewhere else .
As far as never working more than 48 hours is concerned, if that’s what you want, then fine. If you want to do more, then fine. Just don’t dictate to me what I must[/b ]work. At the end of the day, at the moment, their’s plenty of work out their (for how much longer I wonder), if you can’t afford to live, then go get another job.
Cheers
Ian.
i know of at least one large haulage firm that hasn’t changed anything for the wtd simply because as stated above when you sit down and work it out the drivers are still doing sixty hours plus.
as for some o/d’s not being exempt thats a joke really, you’ve only got to one job for another firm in the period and your sorted thats of if the wtd would actually effect you in the first place!
come on chilled name and shame your company to many people try to secretive about their job never mind that name and shame
Spoke to my gaffer about the WTD and he says that it will only make about a 2 hour difference in the working week, what with POA’s, waiting for ferries etc, and I am salary paid which helps 
With the companies I go to through the agency, the only thing that is changing is their timesheets. They now have columns for work, rest and PoAs.
TC:
BIG CUT■■?Well I am sorry to say that if your taking a cut, you were most likely doing too much in the 1st place!
Any driver employed working more than 48 hours before, and now complain have got the employers bug!
If you cannot earn enough, working less than 48 hours then we/you/us need to stop this silly game and refuse to drive. until we are paid the going rate.
The ok I am allright jack amongst us should be reading the polish/EU threads very carefully. money is the only thing that is indespensible,drivers are not.brilliant ,TC my views entirely.
Oh and for the Tory boys here, I have not drove a truck in 12 months! and it wasnt anybetter in fact worse when the witch was in control!