Driver shortage - big pay rise but

[conor]

bbc.co.uk/news/business-58394903

Tom Reddy has been driving lorries for more than 15 years and his pay was recently increased from £17.50 an hour to £24.50 - a 40% jump.

“I’ve never known anything like it,” he told the BBC. “But they could pay me £80,000 a year and it wouldn’t be enough, I want to leave.”

Mr Reddy says it is difficult to have a family life with the unsociable hours the job demands.

While Brexit is a factor, it is the shifts, regularly sleeping in a lay-by and the rude way in which members of the public talk to him that make him no longer want to continue in the job.

He also blames gender imbalance in the workplace, as well as racism and xenophobia on the road for his decision to leave.

Nick Downing in front of lorriesimage sourceNick Downing

Nick Downing, an HGV owner and driver, has been in the role for 43 years and seen how the industry and working conditions have changed over time.

When he started out in the late 1970s, parking overnight and using free facilities in towns like public bathrooms was quite common. He says most have now closed, leaving few options available when driving in the UK.

“On the Continent, their facilities are a lot better than our own and I think that’s a lot of the reason why the younger generation are not coming into the job.”

He says that conditions “get worse every week” and people are often not very understanding.

“People don’t want you parking in their back gardens or parking in lay-bys, and we don’t want to either, to be honest,” he adds.

“We’re away five or six nights a week. We just want to feel secure and have facilities with a toilet and shower block. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask in the 21st century.”

He says that the time taken to find somewhere suitable to park at night can have a knock-on effect, delaying deliveries and resulting in lost revenues the next day.

Due to his experiences, Mr Downing says he cannot recommend his profession to young people.

“It’s a sad thing to say, but I don’t think you should. Maybe pay a bit more attention at school, instead of kicking a ball about like I did.”

I say, I do believe that the penny has started to drop at least with the media and they’re starting to no longer buy the RHA bull manure.

[mickcharity]

Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

[yourhavingalarf]

MickCharity:
Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that Joe Public will see that it’s management that have caused the shortage and not us directly. The more people learn about the crap we have to put up with, the more they’ll understand why no one wants to do this job any more.
I’d describe rampant inflation in terms of thousands of percent. You know, when some African dictator messes everything up and the prices rise by 1000% kind of thing. Yes, there will be some inflation, it’s been far too long in coming. Let’s face it, having the choice of five different types of runner beans from 3 different continents in your local supermarket is marketing insanity. A desperate effort to out do your rivals. All that’s gonna go and that’s fine by me.

[beanie]

Just been watching both BBC and ITV breakfast channels.

ITV reporter was outside a Wetherspoons pub in Eastbourne reporting on how Wetherspoons are having difficulty in getting supplies of beer due to a shortage of drivers. Ironically it was all the beers that are brewed in Burton on Trent (Carling, Coors, Bud Light), not a mention of John Smiths from Tadcaster.

BBC reporter was in Stafford at Veolia recycling site, about bins not being emptied due to a shortage of drivers and how we take every day tasks for granted with the aid of drivers. The head of HR for Veolia was interviewed and she did mention the IR35 situation, how 2,000 drivers leave the industry every week and only 1,000 join but used the interview as a recruitment campaign!

Both reports highlighted the RHA pushing for a change in immigration rules. Not once in either report, was the salary/wages issue brought up, I wonder why that is?

[dcpcfml]

MickCharity:
Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

THIS ^ ^

[dcpcfml]

yourhavingalarf:

MickCharity:
Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that Joe Public will see that it’s management that have caused the shortage and not us directly.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that you are totally and utterly deluded.

[yourhavingalarf]

DCPCFML:
I’m reasonably…

Confident that you are totally and utterly deluded.

Couldn’t you…

List the reasons you disagree instead of throwing your crayons across the classroom as usual?

That way you don’t come across as such a giant douchebag.

edit the word giant

[harry_monk]

DCPCFML:

yourhavingalarf:

MickCharity:
Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that Joe Public will see that it’s management that have caused the shortage and not us directly.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that you are totally and utterly deluded.

I think generally public oprobrium is directed towards groups of workers who strike for higher pay. Having pay rises simply because there is a shortage of you is by comparison fairly blameless.

[cav551]

If you wanted to find someone to tell it how it is then you couldn’t have chosen anyone better than Nick Downing. As always everything said with a smile. I haven’t seen him for a few years now but he hasn’t changed a bit.

[zac_a]

yourhavingalarf:
I’m reasonably…

Confident that Joe Public will see that it’s management that have caused the shortage and not us directly.

Whereas I’m confident that Joe Public couldn’t care less about why things are happening, just like when they’re driving their cars they look no further than the end of their bonnet.

Lets be honest, the average person has a very negative image of the haulage industry and drivers, they get irritated when they get held up on a single carriageway, and take our safe stopping distance from the vehicle in front, just so they can be 0.5 seconds closer to the end of their journey.

What will likely happen is Joe Public will read these stories about supposedly massive wages and get even more uppity about trucks on the road.

As someone once said to me “No one wants us, but everyone needs us”

[yourhavingalarf]

Zac_A:
As someone once said to me “No one wants us, but everyone needs us”

I agree…

We’re only remembered for the times we carve them up rather than the time we let them out.

But I’ll add, they’ll surely spot that we’re the monkey and not the organ grinder right?

[winseer]

MickCharity:
Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

I’m a deflationist by nature.

A lot of the hype about “oncoming hyperinflation” and “oncoming interest rate hikes” - is to scare people into taking out unnecessary fixed rate mortgages in particular.

Interest rates - are like steering an asteroid, rather than a supertanker. It will be YEARS just to see them back up to 2.0% base rate - mark my words!

If they were actually allowed to rise quickly - then the entire fractional reserve banking system would collapse overnight, as nearly all outstanding FLOATING RATE debt would be defaulted. Think about it: Borrowings based on the current 0.1%, Eg. if your deal is "Base rate plus 0.4% - that rate then rising from 0.1% to 2.0% would increase that debtor’s payments from 0.5% to 2.4% - a near five-fold increase in the minimum payment, assuming the debt is interest-only.

The economy - simply wouldn’t be able to wear it, and neither would the cascade-collapsing banking system.

In 1934 there was a Banking Moratorium in the US in particular. So many banks had lost their shirts following the defaults by margined stockmarket speculators from 1929 that had been wiped out by the wall street crash - eventually brought down the banks of the speculators that financed those losses… Meaning that someone who “played it safe, and left their savings in the bank, never to gamble or speculate with them” - ended up losing the lot ANYWAYS - because the BANK fell over.

The current government guarantee on £80k of savings - is NO GOOD if all the banks then fall over at once - is it?

Thus, the establishment manages their lies and spin - like they always have…

We’re frightened into thinking “Interest rates can go up any minute - honest!” when it is actually 100-1 against on the financial markets that Rates will be above 2% a by the end of March 2023.

Trade Short Sterling | Live Bond Prices | IG UK

The current implied base interest rate @ 99933 short sterling futures market quote - is 0.067% - that’s LESS than 0.1%, and the classic set-up exists where ordinary “investors” are short this market (expecting rates to rise, they lose money if they stay the same or fall)

Banks - mop up the lost money of Speculators. Speculators - only win big when the Banks get it wrong, and can afford to pay it all out when they ARE wrong.

Not much point winning £100million at ladbrokes if they go bust, because they cannot pay you out - is there?

The only “Friendly” inflation - is WAGE inflation. All other kinds of inflation - are generally considered to do no good for the public at large at all, eg. food price rises, transport price rises, interest rate rises.

Oddly, we only ever hear the Establishment and propaganda mouthpiece the MSM - touting that “Higher wages is BAD” all of a sudden, at least when it applies to HGV drivers… Odd that!

Meanwhile, talk of interest rates to “punish” people getting higher wages - just makes the public hate HGV drivers should they end up losing their house next year, because they cannot afford the small hike in interest rates that has prevailed since…

In a perfect world - only wages go up in price, with the cost of living otherwise coming down… How can this panacea ever be achieved though? We wouldn’t ever be having the Left as eternal opposition if we could ever get out of this “Nil Sum” rot - that’s for sure.

IF the Bank of England committed to keeping rates down here for a decade or more - any new money-in-circulation generation could be gradually absorbed into our new, wider Post-Brexit economy and new-higher population of such higher diversity now than ever before.
We’re talking about a scenario where Britain grows economically like the US did from the 1950’s onwards, doffing the mantle of World Economic Giant in the process…

BUT the Bank of England - cannot ever admit it plans rates to stay here for a decade - or people would borrow willy-nilly, and then default it the moment rates went back up again…

We’re as addicted to low interest rates as we are to Chinese Borrowings - I suggest.

Anything can happen in our future Post-Brexit economy. We’ve already had Barrels of Oil worth less than a single sheet of toilet tissue a year back… What more totally absurd surprises are there yet to come?

[noremac]

Scant detail on the pay to be honest. Makes it seem like a £24.50 basic, but is it in reality? Jury is out. Certainly paints a picture, whether it is the correct one is another matter. No doubt the driver will be staying on for another while though until he gets off his arse to set up this new venture.

[dcpcfml]

Harry Monk:

DCPCFML:

yourhavingalarf:

MickCharity:
Your MSM is not your friend. They are buttering you up for the massive price increases that are about to hit us. They want to blame it on truckers & the shortage of truckers, not on the rampant hyper inflation that HAS to come soon.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that Joe Public will see that it’s management that have caused the shortage and not us directly.

I’m reasonably…

Confident that you are totally and utterly deluded.

I think generally public oprobrium is directed towards groups of workers who strike for higher pay. Having pay rises simply because there is a shortage of you is by comparison fairly blameless.

Is that before or after the media have put their spin on it?

[edd1974]

I watched the report about shortage of bin men
I genuinely find this hard to believe.
And feel it’s all propaganda with viola/and the council.
As a way for the council to get more in tax/pay to have your bins emptied.
There’s not a genuine shortage just propaganda to get more money from people.

[cav551]

^^^
I watched this as well. I noted that she said that existing employees also were being offered an increase " in those parts of the country where there is a shortage" . How thoughtful, only where they think they can’t get away with it any longer. Hopefully these drivers will walk too.

[commonrail]

Bolsover District Council are recruiting bin lorry drivers.
22k for 37 hours per week,over 4 days.

[harry_monk]

DCPCFML:
Is that before or after the media have put their spin on it?

I don’t really see that there would be any advantage, or even logic, in the MSM blaming lorry drivers for a shortage of lorry drivers and/or fomenting hatred towards us, not least because making lorry driving even less attractive as a career option seems to be somewhat counter-productive.

One fairly obvious way to alleviate the problem in the short-term would be to scrap the drivers’ CPC. In the medium to long term the Law of Supply and Demand and substantial pay rises will take care of it.

[winseer]

commonrail:
Bolsover District Council are recruiting bin lorry drivers.
22k for 37 hours per week,over 4 days.

No wonder the Tories won that seat, when beforehand it was considered to be as Red Labour as one could find…

[tude]

Joe Public will think what he is told to think, always has, always shall.

That is why the best method of protest is simply to withdraw labour and we are not alone, many people are genuinely fed up with how they are treated by their employer and the public in many industries, I would like to think we are going to see fantasy being replaced with reality, but I have little hope of this.

I wish you all well in it, I shall be gone by the time the brown stuff properly hits the fan.