thetastytrucker: I cant see how a agency can charge £15 a hour for our services yet only pay us £10 as they are only advertising and then supplying our skills
The short answer is they don’t, or at least not if you don’t let them dictate the rates to you. There’s a lot of misguided info on agencies and how much profit they make. Being ‘well in’ with the management at my regular place of work I was able to get hold of a copy of the agency fees document and it was quite eye-opening. Now I’m ltd co and do charge at the upper end of the scale, but this particular agency that I contract to only makes 75p/hr on my first 8 hours and £1.13/hr on any hours after that. Granted, they make anything between £1.25-2.00 per hour basic and £1.63-3.63 per hour overtime on the thick ■■■■ drivers that work for whatever rate the agency tells them, but when you factor the cost of their big office in a city centre tower block, their own staff costs, advertising costs AND needing to be competitve or cheaper than all the other agencies whilst also offering a good enough rate to attract footfall through the door it’s really not the easy money spinner that a lot of people think it is.
An opportunity presented itself a while back where I could cut out the agency and contract direct for their client, but prior to having learned of their rates to their client I would have been charging them more than what they were, plus needing to obtain PLI, minimum £10k of vehicle damage insurance, the requirement to swallow the first £500 of any claim AND go onto 28 days payment terms instead of the current 7 day terms I have with the agency. Even if I matched the agency rates I’d only be marginally better off financially once I had the insurance in place, but I’d be worse off with regards payment terms and the dark cloud always hanging overhead if I happened to have a prang. Just not worth it.
I did some work for an agency (IT Work). He was paying drivers £6.75 an hour and deducting transport, breaks and uniform. He was charging client £13.50 + Vat. He had at least 30 drivers. He now runs three of his own units as well.
Simple way to end the agency is for haulage firms run there own bank of casual staff and pay a retaining fee…its got to be cheaper in the long term…then you could cover sickness, holidays and extra work as and when required
Then at least the haulage firm would know the quality and the professionalism of the person in question, as with agency drivers you don’t…
Agencies have got the industry by the balls and can charge the haulage firms what they want, so if an agency driver is being paid £10 per hour, I’m more than sure the agency is charging £15 per hr…
I don’t have a problem working for agencies, I’ve done it for years with no problem. I get paid what I think I’m worth, if they aren’t offering the level I want for the job I don’t take it, pretty simple really. As for what they get well they are in business to make money after all, what do you care how much they get, if a transport company is daft enough to pay them that instead of taking on a full timer then who’s the bigger fool.
Don’t blame the agencies just because the transport companies have evolved to the extent that they have morons in the office that cannot plan ahead.
Swampey2418: Simple way to end the agency is for haulage firms run there own bank of casual staff and pay a retaining fee…its got to be cheaper in the long term…then you could cover sickness, holidays and extra work as and when required
Then at least the haulage firm would know the quality and the professionalism of the person in question, as with agency drivers you don’t…
Agencies have got the industry by the balls and can charge the haulage firms what they want, so if an agency driver is being paid £10 per hour, I’m more than sure the agency is charging £15 per hr…
There are so many flaws in that “solution” I don’t even know where to begin.
Winseer:
You’d think that there would be more company interest in saving fuel, rather than penny pinching in the rates and/or booked hours they pay both full time and agency drivers.
Manys the time I’ve suggested to a TM that “warehouse say there’s nothing to go - ring the other end to see if there’s nothing back as well” - only to be told “run both ways empty - we run it like a bus service”. So, nothing loath since I’m being paid by the hour - that’s exactly what ends up happening. Fresh air both ways 200km trip each way. Half a tank of fuel wasted? Cost £250? But they wouldn’t dream of "letting some driver go home 3 hours early, because he’s only 5 hours into a shift, and gets guaranteed a minimum of 8 hours" ffs.
That’s nuts
Why not get said driver with 3 hours to spare to wash some wagons down, help do some shunting or whatever? Or, just take in on the chin and let him go home and cop the £30-40 or so? The amount of sheer wastage and general inefficiency in our industry is chronic. When it comes to saving money, the first thing firms always look at is how to screw drivers out of money rather than getting their own practises in order. It’s the easy option I guess but bloody annoying.
Swampey2418: Simple way to end the agency is for haulage firms run there own bank of casual staff and pay a retaining fee…its got to be cheaper in the long term…then you could cover sickness, holidays and extra work as and when required
Then at least the haulage firm would know the quality and the professionalism of the person in question, as with agency drivers you don’t…
Agencies have got the industry by the balls and can charge the haulage firms what they want, so if an agency driver is being paid £10 per hour, I’m more than sure the agency is charging £15 per hr…
There are so many flaws in that “solution” I don’t even know where to begin.
As I stated earlier, they employ agency whilst their own staff either don’t get called in or get less hours per shift. When you find out why, then you may be able to work out what’s in it for them.
A possible explanation for the illogical decisions regarding the use of agency in preference to employed drivers could be a case of those from the same “Lodge” looking after their fellow Masons. Just a thought.
That’s the point, the local level are instructed by the hierarchy to use agency and they carry out those instructions without question.
There is a something similar to Mason’s for a lower tier but I cannot recall their name at present, but it was active when I worked for HM Government. A similar practice, we would sit doing nothing whilst contractors did our job. Someone somewhere was obviously getting looked after.
Freemasons are the reason Rolf,Jim davidson-(grandmaster) and Cyril Smith amongst others,have swilled and filled their filthy boots for many a year.They are well protected by fellow masons,its the way it rolls for them.If more folk had a real education on this,on the surface benign,organisation and it’s deeply sinister connections to ancient Kabbalic,satanic practices they would begin to comprehend just how intrinsically cancerous this entity pervades the body politic of our repulsive political system of control.
Jimmy Saville was a 32nd degree mason,hence the regular friday night gatherings with senior cops at his drum in Leeds.All top rank cops are masons pretty useful for evil satan worshipping pedarests such as he to indulge obliviously for decades.Ditto Cyril Smith apparently a member of the most powerful Scottish Rite Of Freemasonery for many years.
The ultimate dude of the Palladian rite of masonery,one Albert Pike wrote a very interesting letter in his ‘Morals and Dogma’ opus detailing the ultimate agenda of the wizards behind the curtain,who pull the levers of power in todays world and I wo6ld recommend anyone investigate his ruminations as they are without doubt unravelling at a fair rate of knots especially in the middle east at present.
You won’t see the end of Agencies.
I worked two agencies and recently ended up on the sick after a motorcycle crash.
I was able to claim sickness off both agencies because my average working shifts calculated through both dictated both had to pay.
I have been working under an Umbrella Company that deducts expenses like travelling to and from jobs, work clothes and toll fees both ways.
It all mounts up if work placements are at a distance.
On starting Agency Umbrella I wasn’t told I could claim travel both ways when I asked the Manager, how convenient to them. So last year saw me with over 800 quid in unclaimed expenses.
Agency work suits me as I can choose the type of work I want. I let the others that want to,do the donkey work. Plus I always haggle on my hourly rate which is going to be worthwhile.
Now I’m LTD company driver my rate is decided per contract through agency. Time and a half Saturday, double Sunday, and paid weekly. Doing very we’ll thank you.
I notice salary drivers at a certain depot don’t refuel on return and are quick to not hang around to check over things or report any defect. The same salaried drivers are responsible for running the job far to quick and spoiling it for others.
For example putting tacho’on break while unloading. ( mugs)
Why rush around, speed and make mistakes. And how the hell can a driver be enjoying his job running about like a headless chicken for a boss that couldn’t give two hoots about you. And as someone said earlier, there’s brown envelopes being past around for fun.
Go Ltd and choose the work your happy with, keep your licence clean and get back home safe to your family.
Or you could be one of the mugs on a fixed salary working like a dog,or ripped off by an Umbrella Company/ Agency that swears you’ll be better off. ALL BS.
