jj72:
I’d like to think there was nobody on here stupid enough to blame any Eastern European driver, or even his boss, for the situation - they are only earning a living,
I would like to think the same but I would go as far as putting money on the fact that we would both be wrong.
Harry Monk:
I wouldn’t blame the driver or his boss. But it would not be difficult to legislate against a load travelling from the UK to Spain being carried by a Bulgarian haulier by re-introducing a permit system, or to discourage it using the tax system.We simply have to stop exporting jobs, and I think people are just starting to wake up to that now.
I’ve been reading this thread since limeyphil started it and so far resisted replying because the last time i mentioned the same as harry has pointed out i got severely slagged off by those on trucknet who can see no wrong in the curse of the cheap driver.
there are as harry says plenty of trucks from bulgaria, many from company called PIMK, who do spain to the UK and the trucks and drivers never go home whilst earning low pay compared to the rest of EU and how can it be legal for a truck not to return to its operating centre every so often? what about maintenance and inspections?
Wheel Nut:
orys:
Also: if the right for transport will be limited, you might get the job over the Bulgarian from Spain, but to Bulgaria you won’t have a chance against them. So any Eastern Europeanian country will have a huge advantage over you when talking about a run between UK and their country, so this directions will be monopolised by the cheaper Easterners, while on the runs to Spain you will still have to compete with Spaniards. To put the costs down, your boss will lower your wages…We cannot compete with the Spaniards even if they use Spanish labour, standards are not as high in Spain, the drivers hours are more relaxed in general and it is much easier for a Spanish farmer to run a fleet of trucks then Farmer Giles in Lincolnshire
what a load of crap, since living in spain i have been earning more than i used to when i lived in the uk and drove into europe and from what i keep reading on here i’m earning more than the majority so how can it be lower standatrds in spain?
harry hit the nail on the head about employment, since the EU got bigger spain has imported unemployment from bulgarians and romanians who will work for low pay and displace spanish drivers
Harry Monk:
I wouldn’t blame the driver or his boss. But it would not be difficult to legislate against a load travelling from the UK to Spain being carried by a Bulgarian haulier by re-introducing a permit system, or to discourage it using the tax system.We simply have to stop exporting jobs, and I think people are just starting to wake up to that now.
Unfortunately Harry, I think such protectionism would ultimately do UK hauliers venturing into Europe more harm than good. Using your example, how long before France decided that non-French trucks could not transit France for example, in an effort to protect their hauliers!
At present, and I can’t see any legal or moral way of changing it, the system is probably as fair as it possibly can be. If the Eastern European companies
are operating legally, then there’s nothing that EU law allows us to use as an objection.
However, what is wrong is that Operator Licensing standards in some countries are nowhere near as stringent as they are here. Try parking your
truck in the street or outside your house in the UK to see how long you get away with it! For example, look how many lorries are parked by the flats
as you go through Irun in Spain. They’re mostly locals, and they’re surely not parked at their operating centre. On the other hand, look at some of the
big East European hauliers yards. The Poles and Romanians and Hungarians in particular have state-of-the-art depots. What the industry needs is
an EU enforced Operator Licensing system. Then we’ll only have the non-EU countries to moan about!
what the EU needs is.
however, there will still be idle sods blaming everone else for them having no work.
has anyone noticed the wages pattern throughout europe?
spain and portugal join. they have low wages, they can work cheaper. then wages rise to equal the existing member states.
so they get someone else to join, they can do the job cheaper, wages rise, so they find another, and another.
how far will it go. Iran perhaps? Sri lanka?
it sounds daft, but the EU is so daft you couldn’t rule it out.
all licenced hauliers should get a fuel card, say AS24, that works in all EU countries and everybody pays the same rate without VAT seeing as working between EU countries is non VATable
as fo rthe wages that will never be the same as long as bogdan and his mates are willing to work for half what the rest of us want
welshboyinspain:
all licenced hauliers should get a fuel card, say AS24, that works in all EU countries and everybody pays the same rate without VAT seeing as working between EU countries is non VATable
as fo rthe wages that will never be the same as long as bogdan and his mates are willing to work for half what the rest of us want
I don’t think its a case of the drivers willing to work for less. Their respective countries social infrastructure dictates wages.
gb1:
welshboyinspain:
all licenced hauliers should get a fuel card, say AS24, that works in all EU countries and everybody pays the same rate without VAT seeing as working between EU countries is non VATable
as fo rthe wages that will never be the same as long as bogdan and his mates are willing to work for half what the rest of us wantI don’t think its a case of the drivers willing to work for less. Their respective countries social infrastructure dictates wages.
I think he means bogdan and his mates are willing to work for less than us in our own countries, which would equate to great wages in their own country.
welshboyinspain:
all licenced hauliers should get a fuel card, say AS24, that works in all EU countries and everybody pays the same rate without VAT seeing as working between EU countries is non VATable
Good idea.
welshboyinspain:
as fo rthe wages that will never be the same as long as bogdan and his mates are willing to work for half what the rest of us want
The wages issue is not that simple. Even in the UK there are parts of the UK where the locals work for less than other parts of the SAME country so surely wages need sorting out on a national level before we can even think of sorting it out internationally.
limeyphil:
why is it the East Europeans get the flack all the time for undercutting.
sometimes it is rates, sometimes it is wages.in every job i have done, the east europeans have been on the same rate/wage as me. “and i won’t work for [zb] money”.
Thats Strange Phil, a local company here in Svishtov is advertising for Drivers and the wage is Far from yours unless your working for peanuts Lol
Wage offered 50 Lev per day local work running from Svishtov to the Mountains collecting trees for the timber mill at todays exchange rate thats £21.89 for a 10 hr shift, you can also do distance work if you want for 90 Lev a day thats £39.41 a day + 20 Lev night out money thats £8.75 or thereabouts 
limeyphil:
then there is cabotage. whenever it gets mentioned, you hear people go on about being undercut by the east europeans. How?
cheap diesel dosn’t last forever. they have to pay tolls to get here. then there are ferry costs.
If the above wages are anything to go by then you’ll find that Yes they can do the job cheaper but what also has to be took into account is the cost of living here is much lower than the UK, a loaf of bread 31p a pack of 20 cigarettes £1.88 etc etc etc
The locals scramble for any jobs with “Good wages” like that
Davey Driver:
If the above wages are anything to go by then you’ll find that Yes they can do the job cheaper but what also has to be took into account is the cost of living here is much lower than the UK, a loaf of bread 31p a pack of 20 cigarettes £1.88 etc etc etcThe locals scramble for any jobs with “Good wages” like that
And of course, the cost of housing. Here’s just the first page I dragged up for houses in Bulgaria. No doubt if you could buy a detached 4 bedroom house in good condition for £40,000 in the UK, people would be content to work for proportionate wages.
Davey Driver:
limeyphil:
why is it the East Europeans get the flack all the time for undercutting.
sometimes it is rates, sometimes it is wages.in every job i have done, the east europeans have been on the same rate/wage as me. “and i won’t work for [zb] money”.
Thats Strange Phil, a local company here in Svishtov is advertising for Drivers and the wage is Far from yours unless your working for peanuts Lol
I think Phil meant the jobs in UK, not in Bulgaria 
We should never have let the smaller countries out in east europe join the E.U. When we allowed them to come here and work it has just reduced the money that has been earn’t here be used in the homeland of the worker and that is why we are struggling to sort out our economic problems out.
If and when it gets to the stage that the East Europeans can earn the money they earn here at home they will return home.Then there will be jobs here and wages will go up.
We were once a country that was near the top of the monetary table and the rest of Europe looked at us enviously. Now we have handed over our control to them they are doing no more than asset stripping us to bring us down a peg or two. Couple that with a government that has over the past 15 years made it acceptable for 16 year olds to get pregnant and then be given a house for free, people to declare themselves unfit for work and get paid large benefits for not working and paying people tax credits for the lower paid so employers can pay low wages.
I think cheap labour and foreign Hauliers undercutting us is a drop in the ocean compared to what is happening to us in not so great Britain. What with the vat rise and petrol now higher than it has been we are well and truly in the mire.
Did you know these clowns in power also put 1 % on insurance premium tax ? This country beggars belief at times 
orys:
I think Phil meant the jobs in UK, not in Bulgaria
Did he? why did he bring cabbotage into it if they are Eastern Europeans working in the UK?
Ory’s, still you know yourself, if wages in Poland are lower than the UK you would be happy to commute to the UK for better wages once every 3 or 4 month, I was merely pointing out the wages on offer here to Bulgarians, the village we live in regularly see’s the young ones flocking to the UK to pick fruit etc because the wages are better than they can get in Bulgaria, yet one lad who I was speaking to just last night was telling me they are crammed 10 to a caravan and only paid £3.50 an hour 
as the gangmasters quote the price to the farmers and they get paid from the gangmaster not the farmer, so much for minimum wages in the UK, but keeping to the topic 
Eastern European Companies have lower overheads and running costs, so they are in a position to knock that bit extra off the going rate, maybe a poor rate to the UK but a better rate going back to Eastern Europe despite being lower than what a UK Haulier would need ?
Harry Monk, you quoted a price for houses, try looking at the village houses away from the Black Sea Resorts and you’ll see property on offer for a fraction of the £40k, in our Village a large bungalow with 1/2 acre of land sells for around £3,000 sometimes even less,
Until the EU Transport industry is brought onto a level playing field there will always be this problem with undercutting rates on International work, as already pointed out in this thread, parts of the UK see differing wages for exactly the same type of work.
MrReliable:
We should never have let the smaller countries out in east europe join the E.U.
Well, that might look like that from your point of view, but I think you rather should never let them to fall under Soviet Union sphere of influence… Then the growth of the economy in whole Europe would be about the same over last 60 years…
If and when it gets to the stage that the East Europeans can earn the money they earn here at home they will return home.Then there will be jobs here and wages will go up.
The problem is that it would be hard for them to chase you, the rich countries, benefiting from the common european market with their level of salaries and economics…
We were once a country that was near the top of the monetary table and the rest of Europe looked at us enviously.
Just after war you were nearly bankrupt - as well as many other, eastern european countries. After that you on the west (including Germany, who started it all) were benefiting from likes as Marshall plan, while east was milked by the Big Bear. This is why the Europe grown in two speeds.
Now we have handed over our control to them they are doing no more than asset stripping us to bring us down a peg or two. Couple that with a government that has over the past 15 years made it acceptable for 16 year olds to get pregnant and then be given a house for free, people to declare themselves unfit for work and get paid large benefits for not working and paying people tax credits for the lower paid so employers can pay low wages.
Well, I am afraid that you cannot blame European Union for that. Many other countries are in EU as well, and they don’t have that benefits policy which is such a huge cancer on the society…
Davey Driver:
Eastern European Companies have lower overheads and running costs, so they are in a position to knock that bit extra off the going rate, maybe a poor rate to the UK but a better rate going back to Eastern Europe despite being lower than what a UK Haulier would need ?
Ah, but this is not how it works any more. Most of the eastern European trucks you see at Dover are not travelling back to their country or origin, they will be taking a load to Italy, Spain, Germany, then they will pick up a load for somewhere else in western Europe, and will stay away from base for weeks, possibly months at a time. This is where our continental work went.
Davey Driver:
Harry Monk, you quoted a price for houses, try looking at the village houses away from the Black Sea Resorts and you’ll see property on offer for a fraction of the £40k, in our Village a large bungalow with 1/2 acre of land sells for around £3,000 sometimes even less,
Yes, have seen those too, it’s astonishing what you can buy sub £5,000.
welshboyinspain:
what a load of crap, since living in spain i have been earning more than i used to when i lived in the uk and drove into europe and from what i keep reading on here i’m earning more than the majority so how can it be lower standatrds in spain?
harry hit the nail on the head about employment, since the EU got bigger spain has imported unemployment from bulgarians and romanians who will work for low pay and displace spanish drivers
I didn’t mean standards of living. I don’t doubt you have a good standard of living although from some expats returning home to Derbyshire I believe it is becoming much more expensive.
The standards I mean are the maintenance standards, the “Spanish way” and the ease of starting a new operation. Just look in any French or Spanish transport companies yards and count how many trucks are parked up. We cannot afford to have them stood like that.
I am pleased you are earning more than you were in Wales, but to give you well deserved credit, you must have a grasp of the local language and social standing to be able to work alongside the natives. But do the natives compare you to the Bulgarians and Romanians? After all, you are taking a Spaniards job!
Is it not stange that we complain about Eastern Europeans coming here to earn a living and taking that money back to their own countries to raise their families & buy houses for £3000.00 etc. but at the same time we find nothing wrong with us taking the money we earned here and buying a place in Eastern Europe for £3000.00 or whatever?
Surely if one action is bad, so is the other? Not having a go at anyone in particular but in general.
Davey Driver:
orys:
I think Phil meant the jobs in UK, not in BulgariaDid he? why did he bring cabbotage into it if they are Eastern Europeans working in the UK?
Cabbotage is one thing, but as far as I am concerned he said “in places I worked, foreign drivers were paid the same as I was” - so that should stay true even if he worked in Bulgaria. I bet that no Bulgarian haulier would pay him more than his Bulgarian collegues. I just understanded that as "in the same company, all drivers are paid the same, no matter of their nationality.
Eastern European Companies have lower overheads and running costs, so they are in a position to knock that bit extra off the going rate, maybe a poor rate to the UK but a better rate going back to Eastern Europe despite being lower than what a UK Haulier would need ?
Yet relatively (and often not only relatively, as you can read below!) speaking they have higher costs. If I am looking on my pay slip, NI and taxes are getting some part of what I cost my employer, tax is 19% I think and there is NI on the top of that. In Poland, for example, if you employ someone, taxes and NI costs you MORE than you pay him to his pocket… So if the Polish trucker earns his 300 pounds per month, he costs his employer about 650. Believe or not, this is true. To compare that I took my pay slip and of 975 gross amount I took home nearly 700. (it’s complicated why my wage on that one is so high on this one, but it’s irrelevant for our purpose - you can see the pattern).
So driver’s wages aren’t so higher in Poland.
As they told me on the recent chat in the train, Walter Koops driver gets 6000-8000 PLN per month, this is about 280-360 pounds per week. But Walter Koops pays over 600 quids for that.
G&S Belshill driver takes home about 420 quids per week, but it costs his scottish company less then 600 if my calculations are right.
Diesel in Poland is no longer significantly cheaper than in the rest of the Europe. I checked it and it’s about 4.40 PLN per liter, sometimes cheaper, sometimes deerer. Euro is about 3.90 just now… Do your math.
As much as with the employers salary, the Polish companies are paying huge taxes. This is hard to compare with Britain, as the taxation structure is different, but this article I linked below says that while Poland pays one of the lowest direct taxes in Europe (nearly 20% compared to 42% in Britains), the indirect taxes are amongst the highest in Europe. Vat is now 23%, and you have to pay lot of duty. In Poland, if you buy a road vehicle, you have pay duty, as it’s considered luxury goods!
mojafirma.infor.pl/wiadomosci/63 … ow-UE.html
Other article says that taxes are abou 30% of workforce costs. From my gross tax to date field on my pay slip I can see that my tax is less than 1/7 of everything I earned so far…
Believe or not, but being an Eastern European haulier is not a milk and honey.
It’s true that Polish hauliers had much cheaper live, but this is no longer the case (at least in case of Poland). Believe or not, but even Polish hauliers are using now cheaper subcontractors from Romania or Baltic states.
I dare to tell that what brings the costs down for them is a workers attitude and that makes significant difference for them. Not many British drivers I know would agree to spend several weeks in the row away from home then come back for only few days - this is still common pattern in Polish companies. Also double manning is very popular. Also I work in UK for five years now, as an agency driver I’ve seen hundreds of companies and believe me amount of waste of time, money and resources here is unbelieveable (to be fair, as the big international companies coming to Poland, this also becomes a standard there). We should also consider how much “it’s not my job” attitude compared to “can do no problem” I know from Poland and ridiculous Helth and safety rules costs the economy.
House prices? Well, my friends bought a small terraced house on the outskirts of WrocÅ‚aw (not far from the Coffeholic’s favourite truck stop in KÄ…ty WrocÅ‚awskie). They are really happy as it was discounted from 700 000 to 560 000 PLN.
This is still over 100 000 pounds, I can buy a house in Glasgow for that…
Every time I come back to Poland I am amazed how expensive everything is. Just to give you an example. When I first drove back to Poland, for each liter of petrol in Glasgow (which was about 99 p at the time and the pound was nearly 6 PLN) I was able to buy nearly two litres of Petrol in Poland (as they were costing 3.30 PLN at the time). Today, liter of petrol in Glasgow is 1.20, liter of petrol in Poland is 4.60 and this is more than one pound as for todays rates.
But I think this is a good news for you: the Eastern European countries build their wealth quiclky on that “cutting you” and soon the differences will be no longer so significant. If the British haulage survived allowing 10 new countries 6 years ago, and as you can see from my example they are no longer such a big threat to you, they will survive another few years with Romanians and Bulgarians. And after some time all costs and wages will be about equal, so it will be back to as it should be.
Big Jon’s dad:
Is it not stange that we complain about Eastern Europeans coming here to earn a living and taking that money back to their own countries to raise their families & buy houses for £3000.00 etc. but at the same time we find nothing wrong with us taking the money we earned here and buying a place in Eastern Europe for £3000.00 or whatever?Surely if one action is bad, so is the other? Not having a go at anyone in particular but in general.
The thing that seems to be more than a co incidence is all that negotiating between the Russians and Thatcher etc which led to the East European commy block being allowed into our league in the first place.As the Romans said who gains from this.
But as far as I know,unlike Canada,the Mexican trucks hauling North American imports and exports have to drop their trailers at the US border even though they’re all in the NAFTA zone.The Canadians might feel a bit differently if the North American haulage industry was opened up to some real cut price competition like ours has been 
.
Wheel Nut:
The standards I mean are the maintenance standards
With all my respect, wheel nut, comparing British maintenance standards to what I was used to back in Poland, I can hardly imagine anyone from the civilized part of the world having them lower than Britain.
Or I am very unlucky to work only in the companies who service their vans with Muppets Engineriing.