Company drivers: I get 50 hours guaranteed, holiday, sick pay, any issues union rep will step in, company has to follow strict procedures, if they step out out of this framework we’ll get them on a technicality. Don’t worry.
Agency Driver: Show up. You might even get paid. ‘Am I working tomorrow?. Dunno yet’
The present:
Company drivers: This is not on. One company driver at my place has actually spoken to the union rep to demand, yes demand, why he is not on the same rate as the agency drivers.
Agency driver: Is he for real?
To any company driver reading this, I did not pass the ‘Agency Lite’ version of a class 1 license, in fact when I show up for work I’m routinely expected to perform to the level of your companies best employees, literally one mistake and I might be out the door.
So I have to be at my best.
I’m also expected to provide to my own PPE, Hi-Viz, steel boots etc. at my own expense or else I might be sent home. I also renewed my driver CPC a couple years ago so that I was up to date, that was nearly £500 out of my own pocket. I had to sit in a classroom for 5 days with no wages just so that I had a job to go the next week.
Looks like I might need to have an argument with myself then.
Both of my jobs to date I got by BEING an Agency driver - my agency got me in there.
and although I never actually asked the question of either employer, about 99% certain that my only route to refresh my DCPC (due soon) is self funded.
Don’t see it as that big a deal, about £200 to do online from home now (I appreciate would have been more expensive less convenient in the past).
Having never worked as an agency driver or worked with any agency drivers I find it fascinating to read all the bullshine about them, it often reads as though company drivers have a halo and perfect work ethic.
I wonder who does all the damage in a company environment, those companies who don’t use agency.
Having walked both sides of the road as agency and also employed driver I have the utmost respect for an agency driver who is expected to parachute into a company who he/she may never have worked at before, jump into an unfamiliar vehicle and then undertake unfamiliar work at the standard of drivers who’ve been doing that job for years.
My personal preference would be to be employed, but that’s just it “personal preference “. Just because it suits me doesn’t mean it’ll suit others. At the final analysis we’re all doing the same job no matter what colour polo shirt we’re wearing.
Company drivers: I get 50 hours guaranteed, holiday, sick pay, any issues union rep will step in, company has to follow strict procedures, if they step out out of this framework we’ll get them on a technicality. Don’t worry.
Agency Driver: Show up. You might even get paid. ‘Am I working tomorrow?. Dunno yet’
The present:
Company drivers: This is not on. One company driver at my place has actually spoken to the union rep to demand, yes demand, why he is not on the same rate as the agency drivers.
Agency driver: Is he for real?
To any company driver reading this, I did not pass the ‘Agency Lite’ version of a class 1 license, in fact when I show up for work I’m routinely expected to perform to the level of your companies best employees, literally one mistake and I might be out the door.
So I have to be at my best.
I’m also expected to provide to my own PPE, Hi-Viz, steel boots etc. at my own expense or else I might be sent home. I also renewed my driver CPC a couple years ago so that I was up to date, that was nearly £500 out of my own pocket. I had to sit in a classroom for 5 days with no wages just so that I had a job to go the next week.
I can’t really see your point of this post tbh mate.
Everything you mention was YOUR choice, you knew the circumstances when you made that choice presumably.
If it’s bugging you that the company driver thinks it’s unfair that you are doing the same job as him for more money,.wtf do you expect.
By the same token said driver working direct for the company was also HIS choice…
So if you dont like it,.start direct.
If he don’t like it join the ■■■■ agency.
You’re welcome.
So having said that where do we go with this discussion?
There is no one batch of drivers versus another.
There’s ways we earn our living and want to go through our working lives and there’s ways other people do it, there is no right or wrong way, it’s what suits you at any given time and what you might be able to get work and wage wise at any given time.
I’ve been employed full time for all but about 18 months of my lorry years, after the first 10 odd years of learning my trade so to speak i managed by snatching a bloke’s arm off wean offered a job on vans in the mid 80s which morphed (right time right place) into one of the best paying night trunking jobs of the era, it was of course unionised which set me on a path of always trying to stay in unionised jobs for the rest of my time, and thankfully i’ve managed mostly.
The unionised jobs were almost always paid better than the agency chaps brought in to help out and is still the case where i work now except for if the shift runs into long hours, rare.
This isn’t a ■■■■■■■ contest and bloody good luck to the agency lads who are able to milk some serious dosh on weekends, i might do the same myself yet in the years to come if i want to top up whatever pension there is, but i’d rather not because apart from the odd nice loittle job i slipped into on the agency, mostly i’d rather be in a full time job i’ve usually enjoyed and still do.
Agency drivers like full timers come in all ranges of competence and personality, mostly the lads i work with are excellent but now and again someone less able or with a poor atiitude will get sent in, often those with a poor attitude we don’t see much of again, the lads who come to us are on a higher agency rate than what is the norm so we tend to have regulars who know the job and have proved themselves steady and reliable over time, my lot don’t mind paying the rate so long as the job is done well and the vehicle’s intact when returned.
I don’t see myself as any better or worse than an agency driver who takes a bit of pride and care, they’re getting well paiud and helping us cover extra shifts as needed.
Some places i got sent as agency in my short time doing that if you found a bad attitude at all it was usually the incompetent or shall we say not the full shilling full timers who were dismissive or looked down at agency drivers, apart from one (nope two) bad experiences (one particular asda site, and one pallet outfit, never again) generally the admin and management staff were fine and the full time drivers worthy of the title were also decent enough.
I think it’s the gap now in wages that is causing the issues , most company drivers arnt bothered about a couple of pounds , £13 -£15 , but £13 - £25 then obviously there going to be upset , who wouldn’t be to be honest
I think the issue isnt fulltimers vs agency i think a out of it is down to poor management. most of the “complaints” i have heard are along the lines of full timeers having to do extra work or extra hours due to an agency bod making a genuine mistake or taking longer to do a trunk run that they havent done before.
The only full time hgv job i had i got through doing 13 weeks on agency it was a specific contract with 4 of us sharing the work. we worked as a team and helped eachother. if one of us was off we would split the work up ourselves and then go and tell the transport office what we had done by and large they didnt care as long as the work was done and the timed deliverys were met. It didnt matter if you were agency or full time.
Both of my jobs to date I got by BEING an Agency driver - my agency got me in there.
I got all my full time jobs through being an agency driver. If I didn’t like the firm I asked the agency to put me somewhere else, and if I did I either applied or got offered full time.
That said, agency drivers should get a bit more than full time, because they’re liable to be laid off for the slightest mistake, used as a scapegoat for management ■■■■ ups, never
know if they’re going to be working tomorrow, and get all the ■■■■ runs.
There was a saying at one place: “Friday is always a long day for agency drivers.”
Company drivers: I get 50 hours guaranteed, holiday, sick pay, any issues union rep will step in, company has to follow strict procedures, if they step out out of this framework we’ll get them on a technicality. Don’t worry.
Agency Driver: Show up. You might even get paid. ‘Am I working tomorrow?. Dunno yet’
The present:
Company drivers: This is not on. One company driver at my place has actually spoken to the union rep to demand, yes demand, why he is not on the same rate as the agency drivers.
Agency driver: Is he for real?
To any company driver reading this, I did not pass the ‘Agency Lite’ version of a class 1 license, in fact when I show up for work I’m routinely expected to perform to the level of your companies best employees, literally one mistake and I might be out the door.
So I have to be at my best.
I’m also expected to provide to my own PPE, Hi-Viz, steel boots etc. at my own expense or else I might be sent home. I also renewed my driver CPC a couple years ago so that I was up to date, that was nearly £500 out of my own pocket. I had to sit in a classroom for 5 days with no wages just so that I had a job to go the next week.
I can’t really see your point of this post tbh mate.
Everything you mention was YOUR choice, you knew the circumstances when you made that choice presumably.
If it’s bugging you that the company driver thinks it’s unfair that you are doing the same job as him for more money,.wtf do you expect.
By the same token said driver working direct for the company was also HIS choice…
So if you dont like it,.start direct.
If he don’t like it join the [zb] agency.
You’re welcome.
So having said that where do we go with this discussion?
You totally missed the point ‘mate’.
It’s ain’t bugging me, it’s bugging him.
He was fine with his lot til the agency rates rapidly shot up, now he wants all of the benefits of being a company driver with job security and all that, but with none of the drawbacks of agency work. As we all know, life really don’t work like that. I do agency work simply cos I can, still work full-time, kids have flown the nest and I’m lucky that I have no mortgage to worry about, now just a few years from retiring, so agency driving has suited for the last few years.
The tables are turning, and he’s not a happy chappy. ‘The fear of missing out’ as another lad at work said.
Simply he wants to have his cake and eat it too. You can’t have all of the benefits without none of the risks mate.
Both of my jobs to date I got by BEING an Agency driver - my agency got me in there.
I got all my full time jobs through being an agency driver. If I didn’t like the firm I asked the agency to put me somewhere else, and if I did I either applied or got offered full time.
That said, agency drivers should get a bit more than full time, because they’re liable to be laid off for the slightest mistake, used as a scapegoat for management [zb] ups, never
know if they’re going to be working tomorrow, and get all the [zb] runs.
There was a saying at one place: “Friday is always a long day for agency drivers.”
Well said.
I did a while at a large grocer in Bracknell. Stood at the traffic desk while traffic clerk and manager went thru the runs for the night - Give this run to agency, that run to agency, that one to one of ours, etc etc, you get the idea. Blatant discrimination and they wouldn’t even try to hide it.
“I wouldn’t be seen dead working for an agency” - helps underpin the higher and expanding differential.
…If one doesn’t want to be upset about that expanding differential, then get less upset about the notion of quitting a low-paid full time job to come back as agency for a similar firm (in case the same firm - has a policy of “not taking back ex-full timers on agency”)
