what were you taking home weekly in the 80s 9os around 1985 I was on 160 per week plus a load bonus
1985 i was on 240 to 250 a week , but we were paid on earnings percentage . the rates for the time were very good where we were hauling . we got a tenner night out money and any parking paid cash .
If I remember correctly, mid-80s on powder tankers paid 17% of gross earnings plus an hourly rate for offloading. Seems to have worked out at around £280 less tax.
Early 90’s £150- a trip,scotch to london f & veg markets,mainly spuds/produce down & reload fruit&veg back up for Scottish markets…3 trips a week most weeks,good money back then,hard graft but I was young and daft 
I’ve still got a pay slip from the 60’s, fuel tankers, £18 1s 11p, That’s 18 pounds 1 shilling and 11 pence GROSS, before stoppages. We took a mortgage out in 1970, we were both working, and we agonised for weeks as to whether we could afford it…£30 a month.
As a trailer mate on Macks Hauliers. in Silvertown during 1948 I was on the princely sum of £3. 3 shillings and three pence, for a 48 hour week on journey work. One week my wages came to £9. odd. and the drivers went potty, it was more than their money. Incidentally we still had at that time a couple of old chain drive Scammel tankers. One of which my father drove during the war after being released from the air force.
IF you want a true wage scale of the 1970 80/s just hope some of the BRS men will be able to tell you because there was no trip rate,just basic hours laid down by the TGW maybe i little overtime and the true night out rate. the LONDON AREA ALWAYS GOT A BETTER HOURLY RATE WHY I DO NOT KNOW IT WAS called london waiting ,but it was all us not from London had to spend money there on digs not the locals ,never understood that
you will get so many differnt rates of pay, for differnt type jobs there was no happy medium,it was never enough ,in 1979/80 we had a massive wage strike for 8 weeks for£5 AN HOUR some all ready had it [small hauliers] but not the big companies that drivers were tied to the union. very few owner drivers around then…in fact that strike Fu-ked road haulage up, however you would not have had the road haulage as is now so yes lots of you will cry wolf however that strike got what you all have now …but we did not know it then…
dbp-
Most big companies used to- and probably still do- pay a higher rate for the same job to those working in the capital. This was called, “London Weighting” and was meant to cover the higher cost of living associated with being domiciled in the metropolis. This was common, not only in the transport industry but in most other industries and commercial firms such as banks, insurers, etc. It was a bit of a bone of contention between different depots of BRS as us “yokels” couldn’t understand why we were paid less than the London lads for sitting in the same dock queue!
When the HGV licence came in circa 1970, wages rose by up to 60*% in this area.
Cheers Dave.
I am 1 off 5 and my mum didn’t work ,I remember my dad saying it cost £600 per week to run this house ,21 rooms he used to go mad when he came home to all the lights on ! I think my mum was burning more coal than the CGB ,At this time he had a marathan ( late 80s ) earning £500 per day he deserved every penny .
Dad wasn’t a wagon driver, He was a rep. I remember him telling me once that they paid £5000 for the family home in 1968, and that it was 5 times his annual salary, which must have £1000.
I did find an old wage slip from 1989, I since lost it, but I’m sure it was £125 for 40 hrs + overtime, and the night out was £12 that was my first artic job
I also remember, that between 91-94 I was on 21%, and seem to remember the traction rates around 80-90 pence per mile
In 1991 I was doing fridges over the water, I was on a fixed wage plus 24.75 night out money for every day I worked. It was a 2grand a month in the bank job every month, we also got extra night out payments for flyers, of which there were many, so I never touched the money that went in the bank, I saved enough on there to pay cash for my first lorry in 1993.
In 1989 I was running to Italy and I started on a take home wage of 290.47, I got a fifty quid a week rise and that was cash in hand taking my total to 340.97.
Prior to that I was on mainly UK work and doing locals we got 160 guaranteed then 25% of everything over 700quid, some weeks were over 400 in my sky rocket.
Before that I was driving a four wheeler and pulling in about 250 to 300 depending on what I did.
That period was a good time to be a lorry driver in London.
Hi
In 1972 I was on a salary £1200pa as a driving instructor for a HGV driving school.
This wage was,nt covering my outgoings so I started with Rugby Cement as a night driver on a hourly rate which worked out at £39 a week before tax, approx £30 a week take home, for a 55hour week, quite an increase in my finances.
14 years later when the night job finished I was taking home just under £200 per week,still the same 55hour week on what was a relatively easy job all be it on nights. Unfortunately redundancy finished this job.
I remember going back into the rough and tumble of general haulage with never ending hours and taking home £180 PW with night out money being about £18 per night and any other expenses being paid.
If you could adapt to night work the job was a lot easier then, I wonder if that is still the case?
Cheers. Bassman
I remember the first YEAR I earned £1000 gross it was 1967/68 tax year, was driving 6 and 8 legger bulkers collecting coal and smokeless fuel from South and West Wales or the Midlands to Southampton/Bournemouth areas plus the odd load of ‘screenings’ (dust) to Reading or Bedford power stations as a first load. That wage was for a 60 hour week and if we worked more the hours were carried over to a shorter hour week as it was illegal to work more than 60 hours and the boss didn’t do cash in hand. Nights out were £1 (tax free) and at the time Jacks Hill cafe charged 10/- (50p) for the bed and you paid for any food seperatly, the other cafe we used regularly was Taylors just off the M4 near Llanwern which was 12/-(60p) B&B. At that time I think a grand a year was the UK average wage so I was considered rich by mates only earning only £12 to £14 a week on local work.
When I finished work in 2002 I was on earnings and topped out around £15,000 gross for the year, no two weeks were the same so cannot really state a weekly amount. When I started in 1984 I earned around £12,000 gross per annum.
Pete.
Yes, retired old ■■■■ you are 100%correct as ex BRS myself.
if only we had known !that the OHS was starting up we would have been in clover,also why did the tanker men have a higher rate ,??Moving around chasing the cash was not the thing do be doing back.
Found a old pay slip 1984.
first" salary" job i had, Idid not like salary ,however £710 per month +£100 monthly bonus.in 1984.take home used to vary£573 /£643 NEVER DID WORK IT OUT
it did get that you worked as many hours as god sent…
Jump to ACH, 1994 NO ONE EVER TALKED ABOUT WAGES we all got differnt for the same work.all european=5daysTOTAL £433.45 +NIGHTS OUTS £123 .75 DEDUCTIONS =£127.75 TAKE HOME£429.89 they tried to get you back every week,if you did 6 or 7 days obviously the pay would alter but they would hold days pay over to the next week, as you would have 2/3 days off .to catch your brake hours up… they did not like paying you for sitting sat night and sunday mostly to ITALY the wage went down for that weekend…the variations of wages were a secret, as for the bent hours you would run, but never told another driver in fact, you got as you never bothered what anyone else did, you did as you pleased, but we all did it with the office knowing, that is why the bonus would differ…the funny thing is it was MARCH 1994 that most of us received the first summons for over our hours,shock ,horror,disbelief!!
deckboypeggy:
IF you want a true wage scale of the 1970 80/s just hope some of the BRS men will be able to tell you because there was no trip rate,just basic hours laid down by the TGW maybe i little overtime and the true night out rate. the LONDON AREA ALWAYS GOT A BETTER HOURLY RATE WHY I DO NOT KNOW IT WAS called london waiting ,but it was all us not from London had to spend money there on digs not the locals ,never understood thatyou will get so many differnt rates of pay, for differnt type jobs there was no happy medium,it was never enough ,in 1979/80 we had a massive wage strike for 8 weeks for£5 AN HOUR some all ready had it [small hauliers] but not the big companies that drivers were tied to the union. very few owner drivers around then…in fact that strike Fu-ked road haulage up, however you would not have had the road haulage as is now so yes lots of you will cry wolf however that strike got what you all have now …but we did not know it then…
The big drivers strike in 79 was for £1 ONE POUND per hour not £5 per hour as I was a shop steward at the time and we had our agreement signed up in a couple of days and were only on strike for 2 days,
I was working for Sykes Bulk Liquids at the time which was a subsidiary of The Sykes Group whose main work was oil and petrol under the Shaws fuel side so all our lads went onto fuel oil on 12 hour shifts and earned very good money as they were paid fuel oil rates and a few of us did the dispensation work mainly for the pharmaceutical industry.
We were on good money before and we adjusted our bonus system when we went onto £1 per hour from 22 mph to 25 mph but we still had a substantial increase in take home pay.
cheers Johnnie
newmercman,god who were you on for doing fridges at that rate and what work was that … not one of the well known companies, or else we would have all been working there ,was it a owner drivers second motor,you lucky man… that with night allowance included…
Sammyopisite you have got me thinking now.£5or £1 we worked 50 hours a week so that would have been £50 a week that does not seem right and i cannot remember… we at Mortons had 8 weeks strike over christmas ,read my driving history .then redundant…any one out there who can confirm the ammount please .
I worked for Bewick then and they rounded my dark, overtime, etc to guaranteed £128.00 for 5 days plus 6hrs for Saturday