ok im in a job but i keep hearing this everywhere but why arnt companys advertising jobs, so it makes me actually wonder if its true,
so to all employers everywhere why dont you actually start advertising for proper full time drivers if you want to get them and ditch agys then maybe people will come. 
and maybe you wont be short.
ok rant overā¦
Hi xxicelandicxx, thatās a good observation, if you donāt mind me saying so.
For as long as I can remember (back to the 70ās) driving jobs in the haulage industry were passed around by word of mouth in cafes and pubs.
I guess that some things never change. 
xxicelandicxx:
ok im in a job but i keep hearing this everywhere but why arnt companys advertising jobs, so it makes me actually wonder if its true,
Driver shortage? there is no driver driver shortage, hence low wages and long hours.
Tiger.
Agencies should all be banned period. 
Currently there are no more vacancies than in other sectors of the job market, hence the ādriver shortageā is a marketing ploy. The scaremongering was first fielded by (iirc) the RHA around a decade ago, the likes of Advantage, Clearstone, Sterling, Qualitas etc based their businessās around it and try to keep the rumour alive to further their less than salubrious practices.
Maybe some drivers want agency work only.
Some earn in 4 days what a driver earns on the books in 5 days.
And they have 4 days on mon / tue / wed / thur/ then friday / sat / sun / OFF
I know of at least 4 drivers doing this.
Only problem is they have no garantee of work.
Agencies do tend to pay a higher rate ( Depending on what area you live )
To many agencies spoiling the job these days, why employ somone full time when you can get drivers in when itās busy and get shut when it goes quiet. Only every been on agency books onceā¦NEVER AGAINā¦ AGENCY ( full of ā ā ā ā )
Doesnāt help when we have agency drivers working two days a week and going back to pen pushing etc for their full time job the remaining five.
Kneal:
, why employ somone full time when you can get drivers in when itās busy and get shut when it goes quiet.
Itās called economics. Weāve had agencies now for as long as Iāve been in the industry; in fact I got into the trade via an agency back in 1982, and theyād been going a few years before that.
Yes there are good and bad ones, just as there are good and bad employers of any persuasion.
If you think itās bad in the agency world now, hark back to when holiday pay was an option and the rates were nowhere near what you earned as a āregularā employee.
DAFMAD, why? Do you seriously think itād change anything?
I donāt think theyāre going to go away now. Get used to it.
del949:
Doesnāt help when we have agency drivers working two days a week and going back to pen pushing etc for their full time job the remaining five.
and how exactly does that effect you?
It obviously depresses wages.
it reduces available overtime.
it weakens my bargaining position
it reduces my security of employment
and in a lot of cases it is illegal.
Many people prefer to work via an agency because they are fed-up with āmickey Mouseā companies taking the michael out of them, or they find themselves jobless having been ālet goā.
That has happened to me three times in the past twelve months, once two weeks prior to my wedding ā¦ nice
I am now back at an agency that are generally very good, and if you are not a total muppet they will have regular work for you. In fact, good drivers get asked for by companies, and many companies also take good agency drivers onto their books.
Agency drivers tend to spend a lot of time covering regular staff who are on holidays, and the summer is a very busy and fruitful time for agency drivers.
I am a Class 2 driver, so maybe things are a little different for Class 1ās ?
Personally I like to work for the agency as I can choose when I want to work, and where if I donāt wish to work for a particular company. The money is okay, but of course there is no guarantee of work each day. I donāt need to earn a fortune and I like to maintain a good work/leisure balance.
Another good thing about agency work is that it is usually job and finish. That is great in the summer. In my last full time job they wanted me to do 8 - 18 drops around SW London, then return to base at the top end of north London and pick and load my drops for the next day. Given a choice of that or the agency, I will take the agency every time.
DAFMAD:
Agencies should all be banned period.
If you employed guys actually consulted with your employer and took your holidays when your truck was in for MOT or service etc. , that would reduce the need for your employer to provide ācoverā for you being off work.
Agencies will be around for a long time yet, unfortunately. With many manufacturers now sold on the ājust in timeā management system and much smaller stockholding then any fluctuations in their business undoubtedly means they need temporary staff to cover busy periods, this is true all the way from primary processing(eg; ore extraction) to quaternary processes(eg;packaging) and eventually the end user, and in between all these processes is transportation, which is where we come inā¦
IMHO āDriver shortageā is simply a government / media tag line used to encourage as many people as possible into truck driving. It appears to be working quite well - wages are depressed so industry is happy, also agency drivers (like me !) are just a phonecall away so there is not much chance of any industrial action. Every other industry has been subject to numerous ādirty tricksā designed to either close them down (the car industry / manufacturing) or devalue them (most everything else), why should trucking be any different ?
If people dont stand up for each other - not just themselves - this is what happens. I may not have realised why Margeret Thatcher was so focused on destroying unions (I was too young at the time) but I realise now.
Back in my box !
DAFMAD:
Agencies should all be banned period.
Why?
Ken.
rhudson:
I may not have realised why Margeret Thatcher was so focused on destroying unions (I was too young at the time) but I realise now.
Back in my box !
If she hadnāt reduced the power of the unions theyād have destroyed this country. For all the blather about how good Labour (New or otherwise) are, I donāt recall them renationalising the railways, opening new coal mines and steelworks, or even reversing many of the changes, good or bad, which the previous Conservative government instigated. Iād even suggest that some of them Labour were quietly grateful for, including the pit closures, because they were inevitable and it was one job Labour could never have done.
Go back a bit further to the Wilson/Callaghan administration which preceded Thatcher if you want the answers, or even if you want to se history repeating itself; funnily enough all the Labour diehards seem to think the world began in 1979!
If she hadnāt reduced the power of the unions theyād have destroyed this country
I am implying that unions (in some cases) helped to maintain a bit of status quo between workers and their employers. I did not intend to imply that the Labour governement was, and is, anything but totally incompetent.
rhudson:
[- so you think things are going well then ?I am implying that unions (in some cases) helped to maintain a bit of status quo between workers and their employers. .
I certainly think things have been worse in my lifetime. For one thing it is now over thirty years since electrical power was last rationed; under a Conservative government incidentally!
I agree that unions can keep employers and governments honest, and long may they continue to do so; problem was that in the 1970ās the pendulum was allowed to swing too far the other way, with disastrous results for both sides.
DAFMAD Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject:
Agencies should all be banned period.
del949 Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 5:44 pm Post subject:
Doesnāt help when we have agency drivers working two days a week and going back to pen pushing etc for their full time job the remaining five.
[/quote
To be honest Iam fairly disgruntled with both of your comments !!!
DAFMAD:
For the newbies amongst us, agency work is one of the only ways to gain experience. And personally i think it is an invaluable way to learn !!! Iam looking at going in to class one when i leave the army, obviously i need a starting block and the agency route is it !!!
Del 949 :
As for your point, maybe so, but again, read the above paragraph,I drive in the army as a lot of members on this site have done or still do ! The agency are sometime the only way to get experience of class one. I would like to see a lot of these so called professional drivers who browse this site take a 16T wagon with a 16-18T load across the worst terrain imaginable and get themselves out of the mire when they are bogged in, so do not go on about the penpushers and āothersā etc etc !!!So to be honest in my opinion Agency drivers are not all that bad, regardless of a so called shortage !!!