Yes Suffolk Reefer I am pleased I got out of full time driving 4 years ago, do I miss the Job■■? Yes actually I do, but considering the crap wages I was being paid at the time for driving an S reg Scania Drawbar for TDG Logistics (delivering Henderson Garage Doors mainly into the Essex area) was only £4.50 ph
Tell me how many drivers have stated publicly that they are on crap wages? infact to simplify things lets just count the drivers on this site alone
Transport Industry wages have always and will always be crap, if polish drivers want to come over here and do the job for low wages let them, if they start doing the damage everyone claims they are doing, it wont be long before insurance rates increase dramatically, if the job takes a lot longer to complete because they cannot speak any English then the employers taking advantage of none speaking and none experienced drivers are soon going to be changing their ways in a bid to stay in business.
SFB you cannot tell me that if you had the chance of a better paid job away from driving you would not take it, especially if it involved being your own boss, so dont come with the crap trying to turn an honest opinion of mine into a degradation of the transport industry
My point is that British Drivers are the first to criticise the Polish driver for working over here despite not knowing the Language, yet there is no objection to drivers from the UK going to other countries to work, despite not knowing any of their languages?
Now lets play the game on an even court, I can’t think of the TNet member over in Iraq at the moment, but I’m sure he went over there to work not knowing the language, this is what I’m getting at, Human nature is to fend for ones family, if this means taking a job in another country for triple the wages then yes some will do that, we should not be sitting here objecting to them coming over here, what we should be doing is asking why these countries are not paying a minimum wage to bring them in line with Europe NOW
THE POINT IS, British drivers know the wages when they take the job, mine is not to bad , yes I could earn more per hour stacking shelfs, BUT at the end of my week I have more then said shelf stacker due to bonuses etc etc, and the drivers who dont like the wages dont stay in the industry simple as that , but I know class 2 boys who would make better drivers of class 1 then any eastern blocer, so why not train them
British drivers working abroad isnt a concern for me because I think almost every country except Britain would require a REAL LIFE DRIVER WITH EXPIERENCE of driving the vehicle the job requires them to drive, the eastern blocers I have seen are on the whole poor quality, Turners have even had some so poor they sent them home and believe me if that happens they must be poor. A couple have caused so much damage they have been stuck in the cold store.
When I was a employed driver at Turners they shipped in some South Africans and some lads from New Zeland all good lads , hard workers and they had to sit a British HGV we had no problems with them and many are still there , and they were earning the same money as us and more importantly they had been drivers of Heavys in their home countries now inexpeirenced eastern blocers are flooding the yard working for less money,
I am getting fed up saying it but have seen British company drivers lose money Agency boys lose money some old timers say stuff it and pack up because their regular day runs have been given to the poles because they can only just about manage a A to B job without king it up .
Turn your honest opinion no dont think so , you say let the poles have the jobs no chance , me I have 2 girls to think of before bowing down to that pony and trap
AGAIN the majority of the eastern blocers are not drivers they are jumping on the gravey train with a ten bob rubber stamp licence , if they where real drivers working for the same money as the British drivers I would maybe understand the situation.
I still say I could teach a monkey to pass a east european truck test .
Rather than Tescos recruiting in Poland for class 1 drivers they could have advertised for class 2 drivers here who are desperate to get there C+E licence, train British drivers up to class 1 and sign them onto long term contracts on say a slightly less pay per hour for a year till there training fees been recoverd.
to add my two penneth
i have no objection to anybody coming to this country to earn a decent wage
but i do beleive that anyone coming to this country to drive commercially should be put through the same test i had to takeand pay for it themselves
i put my family in debt to take my hgv ,i the hope that it would pay for itself in the long run
it probabley will
its also a job i enjoy (most of the time)
the copanies employing cheap labour from wherever wil always find it costs more in the end the good drivers will move to better paid jobs and the bad ones will cost companies money
no im not racist
ive not met any of theese drivers so i dont know if i like them or not
but if someone offered me more money to do the job i love …
id bite their hand off
Wheel Nut:
Here are some phrases you can practice with
VOCABULARY
danger - niebezpieczenstwo
driving - prowadzenie samochodu, jazda samochodem
talking - rozmawianie
bad visibility - zla widocznosc
slippery road - sliska szosa
drinking and driving (drink driving) - jazda po pijanemu
to cause an accident - spowodowac wypadek
to lose concentration - stracic koncentracje
dashboard - deska rozdzielcza
sensory overload - przeladowanie informacjami, nadmiar informacji
top of the range - najlepszy w swojej klasie
to miss visual warnings - nie zauwazac znaków ostrzegawczych
traffic lights - swiatla sygnalizacyjne
road signs - znaki drogowe
indicator - wskaznik, kierunkowskaz, kontrolka
gauge - wskaznik, miernik
switch - przelacznik
How about some more?:
Here, take my job and put me on the dole - Tutaj, biorą przedsiębrać moją pracę i kłaść położony ja na dole.
Why would you want to live in a portacabin and be treated like dirt anyway?- Dlaczego byłby wy potrzebujecie żeby żyć w portacabin i jest potraktował potraktowany lubić dirt za wszelką cenę?
Zabieraja mi tutaj prace i wysylaja na zasilek. Dlaczego chcecie mieszkac w kabinach i dlaczego chcecie byc traktowani jak smiecie? Well done Piece of cake
Suffolk ReeferBoy:
. they are employed because they are CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAPPPPPP-
But this is the way of all business, not just transport.
That’s why a colour telly costs £49, when it cost £300 thirty years ago.
And Poles are eu nationals, and are entitled to work anywhere in the eu, same as any other eu national.
But let’s face the truth. Poles are not taking over road transport, same as West Indians didn’t in the 1950’s, and Asians didn’t in the 1970’s.
There are a few. A tiny amount. I don’t doubt that there are ten times more women in road transport than Poles. Shall we start a thread each time we hear or one of them having an accident?
The reason for my original post was our European friends driving Public Service Vehicles.
I do not think it acceptable for some-one to carry passengers on a vehicle when the driver, who is in charge of the safety of his passengers, cannot speak the language.
What would happen if a member of your own family ( God forbid it may never happen ) were hurt or injured, due to some-one driving a Passenger Carrying Vehicle that was involved, or caused an accident with the driver speaking no English ?
Vince:
I can see what you are saying Niall but the simple fact is that these bus companies have two choices- Polish drivers, or no drivers at all.
My own local bus company is cutting routes left right and centre because of the lack of drivers. Is that better?
Vince
Thats not true Vince, They do have a choice, The market economy drives up wages in jobs where there is demand for workers. Using cheap labour (wherever it may be from) is a way of getting round the market economy. As I posted a few days ago, Stagecoach on the south coast are training SERVING prisonors from Ford open prison and employing them whilst they are still serving their sentence, Now that i am sure is because they will do it for less then the average PSV driver would want for a days work.
If the industry needs more drivers then it needs to attract them with increased wages, al that is happening at the moment is cheap labour being used to keep rates artificially low.
smcaul:
Thats not true Vince, They do have a choice, The market economy drives up wages in jobs where there is demand for workers. Using cheap labour (wherever it may be from) is a way of getting round the market economy. .
Well, I would say that using the most economical source of labour to do a particular job is not a way of “getting round” the market economy. it is the market economy.
It’s like this. For the first time in ten years I have found an NHS dentist. She is from Slovakia. Newly arrived, skilled and enthusiastic, earning (for her) very good money.
Should I refuse to use her, and insist upon a British-born dentist to do the job in hand? And let my teeth rot for another ten years?
But there is a shortage of dentists in this country Vince, There is not a shortage of drivers, what there is is a shortage of drivers who are prepared to work for crap money.
smcaul:
But there is a shortage of dentists in this country Vince, There is not a shortage of drivers, what there is is a shortage of drivers who are prepared to work for crap money.
Which brings this topic full circle
But the companies paying crap wages are employing foreign drivers who feel that the wages are high for the job they will be doing,
I was away from home mostly Mon - Fri doing approx 48 hrs in a wagon and drag and TAKING home £225 pw including 4 nights out, yet Suffolk Reefer say’s I should be ashamed for saying let the poles have them wages
I like everyone else put the family first and these foreign drivers are simply doing the same, as for employing a Bus driver who cannot speak English
That in my opinion is desperation
Up until 1997 you could go and sit an HGV class 1 test without even holding a car licence, now the government wants the young ones off the dole and into work but to get a Class 1 or a PSV Licence you must hold a car licence, and to get the dole to put you through the car test you must have a guarantee of a job at the end of the course + you must be unemployed for over 6 months to even qualify
If more employers started offering training packages and decent wages like the Bus Companies then maybe they could attract more people into the business.
I see where you are coming from Davey, When I was working as a TM I was trying to get a van driver (a very good one) trained up for his class 2,I was fighting a loosing battle. The powers that be would rather pay through the nose for agency then to invest in a 22 yr old who had been with the company for 3 yrs with no sickness etc. With companies having attitudes like that then we are always fighting a loosing battle. Needless to say I only stuck the job out for 8 months before I had to move on or I was going to go mad
Davey Driver:
What with all this fuss over Polish Drivers not speaking a word of English■■?
Please do take the time to state where it says that you must have a good knowledge of the language for the country your driving in.
I’ve driven through France, Holland, Germany and dont know much of the language apart from Very Basic and I really mean the very basic
It’s strange how we can be allowed to drive on the continent with no knowledge of their lingo, but as soon as they come across here it’s all wrong and shouldn’t be allowed.
The day the EU introduce a regulation insisting that you must be able to talk the tongue of the country your working in will cause an uproar, could you imaging how many Scot’s would be stuck at the border Lol Not to mention the amount of Cockney’s stuck at Carlisle because no-one can understand em with their lingo.
I think it all boils down to racism, Polish lads are coming here and as ussual the brits dont like it, now put our demands that they speak english etc into their conditions for driving abroad and you’ll sharp see the brits saying it’s unfair.
I think people are refering to Polish (and other) drivers who drive for British companys IN BRITAIN and not those simply visiting. No one is saying a driver of a Polish truck who spends 2 or 3 days in Britain tipping and loading should speak any English at all, that is stupid. But considering practically no British person has the ability to speak Polish, its common sense that a Polish driver who works for a company here should be able to speak enough English to understand instructions, otherwise we’ve got a situation like at my place where our Estonian shunter driver is a total no go zone in communication, he understands NOTHING at all, we cant tell him to do anything, its a stupid situation that shouldn’t happen. The fact that the company pays him £2000 per year less than everyone else is the key factor here and all that matters to those in the office.
I asked TDG to put me through my C+E but they always refused on the grounds that they had ample class 1 drivers, so in effect as 1 driver left an outsider would join the company instead of them investing in the employee’s as they claim they do
Dont get me wrong, they run a good annual training course under their 5 star training plan where you have to do the 1 day course once a year or you cannot drive, but if they are not prepared to back the employee in training for class1 then what chance do you have
In Sept 2003 I sat my C+E at my own expense just to achieve something I’d always wanted to pass and did so first time, yes I miss being on the road now mon - fri but I certainly dont miss the crap conditions, wages and treatment of drivers rights in the UK.
As I’ve said previously, Let the poles have the jobs, it wont be long before the employers then realise the hidden costs involved in employing them, loss of customers who get frustrated not knowing what the driver is saying, high insurance hikes when the premiums come to be renewed, fines for drivers breaking the law by travelling down routes they were not meant to be on as signposted.
Until companies accept that investing in employees is the way forward things will never change, A local company owner in Newcastle (Ramage Transport) complained in Commercial Motor 5 years ago that he could not get drivers despite offering a good wage, I responded to Robin Ramage’s letter stating that if £4.50 was a good hourly wage then he needed to wake up in the land of reality, I dont know what he’s paying now but I’d be surprised if it’s more than £5.50 ph and thats only a £1 rise in 5 years
The North East is still way behind the South when it comes to wages, hence the reason we are seeing more foreigners up here than down south, locals wont work for a pittence and can you blame them?
By the time childcare, rent and taxes are took into account they are better off living on benefits, thats another factor that needs looked into urgently in this country.
YOU do need to speak read and write the language in the land where
you will work ,this means for those people who do work in germany at
a german transport company that works with blue-chip firms in germany
like–BASF; BAYER; SUD-CHEMIE; OPEL: TOYOTA: NIXDORF;SEIMANS;
ETC IF THE FIRM comes from germany and wishes to load then most of these firms do not let the lorrys load any more if the driver does not
speak,read or write german, and i know this is true because our firm
has instructions exactly what the firm will do if this happens, and the
lorry will not get loaded, this is only for those firms who are based in germany,
and this talk about not haveing to speak the lanuage is not correctly
explained, look on the international job adverts in the jobcenter GB
every one states you must speak the language weither it was french.or dutch or spainish, so yes if the workers are not driveing out of the
country then it is completely correct that these people can communicate
in the language where they are working, for HSE REASONS, alone is
good enough , and is the law in every ECC country.
no dont think so , you say let the poles have the jobs 
