How long before I do more warehousing than driving?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

Phantom Mark:
I have raised the issue of H&S and insurance and liability and lack of site induction to cover me and never received a satisfactory answer from either party, all well and good until you are injured and only have statutory sick pay to support your family because neither will pay up, I am paid by the haulier as a driver and thus a supplier to the atherstone brigade.

I know of a driver who was injured at a Morrisons whilst breaking down by a Morrisons fork truck, hurt his ankle and was off work for 3 months on stat sick pay.

Tipping is one thing, tipping then also sorting and storing in correct allocated warehouse lanes is a step too far IMHO and takes the ■■■■ quite honestly.

This.

Don’t mind tipping a load but…

I’d tell them to do one if they said I had to sort the load in allocated lanes.

22

ROG:
I know that as a driver the haulier pays you but is the haulier paid by the warehouse for the work you are doing there?

Like a proper dog with a bone aren’t we here Rog.

Methinks that from the lack of response to your question that we’re all as in the dark over the answer as you are. :wink:

23

ROG:
I know that as a driver the haulier pays you but is the haulier paid by the warehouse for the work you are doing there?

No mate, just another penny pinching scheme which suppliers are allowing the supermarkets to get away with sadly, my worry is how long before they all follow suit and you quite literally end up doing more hours in the warehouse than behind the wheel.

Interestingly typical rates of pay for warehouse chill store fork drivers are better than the average HGV wage in any case, lookingly increasingly likely that you might as well just work in the warehouse as the truck driving bit is only secondary part of the main job eventually.

24

So surely with all this free labour the supermarket RDC’s are getting, are we going to see prices slashed for our weekly shop?? :laughing:

25

Well this is the question, Aldi/Lidl are taking a bigger market share year on year while Asda and Tesco lose out, it won’t be long before they start looking at the business model they are using to make the same cuts to get the prices back into competition will it ?

26

Never had a problem as i said before you want the load you tip it…or i take it back no skin off my back…i dont get paid by them …i get it there on time…open curtains or back doors…cheers…ill ring your boss doesnt wash with me either… :sunglasses:

27

tell them you can’t spare the wtd hours :laughing:

28

thought i had it bad when i have to disconnect the hose and put it on another inlet :smiley:

29

To get your own back, although it will take a bit of effort.

Pick a busy time in the supermarket and load up a big trolley with as many individual small items as you can from all over the shop. Have them all rung up on the till and then ask for the manager. Tell him in front of the queue in as loud a voice as possible, that because the company thinks you are its free labour at the RDC, he can pay to put everything back on the shelf again because you intend to shop elsewhere.

30

I would outright refuse on the grounds of health and safety. I don’t have a clue what risks there are in a warehouse, I drive trucks. Even at our warehouse the only risks I can be certain I know about are the FLTs, the rest could have come from Mars for all I know.

31

If I’m driving a lorry, that is all I do.

I don’t tip and I don’t do the warehouse staff’s job for them. If they want me to tip they need to pay me to tip as well as drive. They don’t, so neither do I. If you’re daft enough to do it, they’ll be more than happy to let you. :wink:

32

:slight_smile: Here’s some inside information for you (I work for Aldi, but not at the Atherstone RDC, but the same applies to all seven DCs in the UK…)

ROG:
I know that as a driver the haulier pays you but is the haulier paid by the warehouse for the work you are doing there?

Yes, the price agreed with the manufacturer will specify that the goods are delivered INTO the warehouse /marked lanes by the suppliers representative -i.e. the supplier’s driver.
If the supplier uses an outside haulage contractor then that will be the haulage contractor’s driver.

A premium is added to the price for the goods to cover the extra time and effort involved by the driver, as to whether any of this extra ££s ever reaches the driver in some sort of bonus scheme is of absolutely no interest to Aldi. They just want the correct items, on the correct size and colour pallets, in the correct RDC, on the correct day, marked, stacked and wrapped the way that they had agreed with the supplier when they signed the particular contract - nothing more, nothing less… :sunglasses:

Phantom Mark,- I’m sure I’m not the only one on here thinking this, but have you considered switching to another type of employer that does not do RDC deliveries…e.g: tippers or parcel firms or tankers ■■
Regarding your worries about being injured in any way whilst on Aldi premises: Do you seriously think that a multi BILLION pound organisation is likely to skimp on its Insurances for staff, visiting delivery drivers, casual and temporary agency staff, etc ■■ :laughing: :laughing:

cypry0:
Just stick them all in the wrong place, then they will soon work out its better for them to do it them selfs :smiley:

:slight_smile: or more likely, ask the supplier to get a different haulage contractor to bring the goods in for them…then that might leave you to have to do some explaining to your boss and fellow drivers as to why they lost a regular and increasing source of turnover/work/overtime/bonus. :wink:

old_n07:

cypry0:
Just stick them all in the wrong place, then they will soon work out its better for them to do it them selfs :smiley:

Exactly, also when splitting down mixed pallets it’s a shame when some products get mixed up :laughing:

No delivery driver should have to split pallets- that would be down to the numpties where the goods were loaded and the despatch manager there. If Aldi asked for 300 trays of strawberry yogurts on a single pallet and 200 trays of cherry yogurts on a different pallet - then thats how they want em delivered in -not on the same pallet (as someone thought they would be clever and save a pallet space by putting the 200 on top of the 300… :unamused: :unamused: )

Hope this helps to dispell some myths regarding self tip RDCs - incidentally all the above would apply to Lidls as well as Aldi.
There is a reason why they operate the way they do. It may not be obvious to the casual observer, but it works by being more efficient, cost effective and profitable.
…Which in turn means JOB SECURITY,whether you are employed directly or indirectly by “Britain’s fastest growing supermarket”. :smiley:

**Oh, nearly forgot - bad news for you whingers out there…
Aldi are building another RDC at Goldthorpe , near Barnsley, it will open up in a couple of years … :sunglasses:

33

Deesider:
:slight_smile:

A premium is added to the price for the goods to cover the extra time and effort involved by the driver,

It would be interesting to hear whether this ‘premium’ ever gets paid to the haulier. Probably just the same as the extra three hours warehousing charges while it is waiting for a bay.

34

Thanks Deesider, interesting read.

As I said, quite happy with the tip, just think they went a little over the top with the warehousing side of it. I enjoy fridge work but stuff like this is starting to take the shine out of it for the above reasons.

Still waiting for an official line on the h&s issue regardless of them being a multi million quid organisation, never helped that fella at Morrisons did it ?

35

Phantom Mark:
Thanks Deesider, interesting read.

As I said, quite happy with the tip, just think they went a little over the top with the warehousing side of it. I enjoy fridge work but stuff like this is starting to take the shine out of it for the above reasons.

Still waiting for an official line on the h&s issue regardless of them being a multi million quid organisation, never helped that fella at Morrisons did it ?

deeside bloke:
or more likely, ask the supplier to get a different haulage contractor to bring the goods in for them…then that might leave you to have to do some explaining to your boss and fellow drivers as to why they lost a regular and increasing source of turnover/work/overtime/bonus.

Deesider is spot on here :frowning: . I used to be about as militant as you can get when it came to the topic of handball and self-tipping. My job was turning steering wheels and opening back doors ( :open_mouth: ), anything else and you either did it yourself or the whole lot went back. Not surprisingly - and it’s funny to look back and laugh now - this didn’t go too well for me and I went through 1 or 2 jobs… :laughing:

Trouble these days is most hauliers are pulling for buttons and they’ll do whatever it takes to get the juicy contracts. If you (as a haulier) have a bunch of militant drivers that refuse to do what the client requires then you can forget about any renewal when the contract is up, or even worse, they’ll terminate it mid contract and get someone else in. Essentially, the “I don’t do handball” drivers are writing out their own P45s as that’s where they’ll end up when their company can’t secure any other decent paying contracts.

It’s very rare I do any driving work now but when I went self-employed I was charging an hourly rate that I was happy with and to be honest I didn’t really care what I was doing so long as it wasn’t physically demanding work and they didn’t expect me to rush. I can recall several times when I never even set foot in a truck for the entire 13 or 14 hr shift I was booked for as they needed me to drive the van instead or jump on the FLT to trans-ship loads from one trailer to another for the day shift. I could’ve had a toy throwing session over it and told them that I’m a truck driver not a FLT driver-■■■-yardman but where does it get you? As an employee you can sit there feeling smug that you’ve got one over on them but you can be sure you’ll be 200 miles from home come 6pm Friday night and your ‘card’ will be marked; as an s/e driver there’s a high chance that your name and number will mysteriously disappear off their favourite contract drivers list and you’ll be sat at home wondering why your phone isn’t ringing. :confused:

It’s also worth remembering that there’s 2.5 million people officially unemployed in the UK and we’re about to drop back into a recession. It’s an important factoid that the “I don’t do handball/self-tip” brigade should keep in the back of their minds when poised ready to throw the toys out after being asked to put pallets in specific lanes. :bulb: :smiley:

36

If you are using MHE to unload then you should be trained and signed off on it. If you are using MHE you haven’t been trained on then good luck getting any compensation if you have an accident.

37

What a load of jackanory…the driver never see’s any money for self tipping…just a load of arrogance and grunting…ive never tipped mine at aldi or lidle…and boo hoo :cry: ill ring your boss …heres the number save me the time you looking for it.

38

Phantom Mark:

ROG:
I know that as a driver the haulier pays you but is the haulier paid by the warehouse for the work you are doing there?

No mate, just another penny pinching scheme which suppliers are allowing the supermarkets to get away with sadly, my worry is how long before they all follow suit and you quite literally end up doing more hours in the warehouse than behind the wheel.

Interestingly typical rates of pay for warehouse chill store fork drivers are better than the average HGV wage in any case, lookingly increasingly likely that you might as well just work in the warehouse as the truck driving bit is only secondary part of the main job eventually.

I was doing a job a year or 2 back on agency, close to home, not too bad, except, when back off your 1st run, you stook on the loading dock and loaded all the trucks, only foam, but if I wanted to be a warehouse person, I’d have saved a fortune on my HGV licence, especially as the wages are comparible.

39

Not a problem self-tipping as most of these loads are contracted directly to us, the problem arises when a DC insist you split 4 pallets down into 36 :open_mouth: when they’ve come through a pallet network, needless to say they were refused BY US. When they eventually went back after a chat with the supplier it took the driver 4 hours to sort it. This happens regularly with samples, which don’t normally need booking references (YOU GOT IT mr security at M&S), but the guys and gals on loading bays insist that they’re split onto separate pallets.

As most firms work to RHA conditions of carriage, unless an agreement is in place for the driver to unload or do extras (ooo-err) then said driver should contact his office, not moaning but just to put them in the picture as the driver doesn’t usually know what the supplier has agreed/paid for.

40

MADBAZ:
Not a problem self-tipping as most of these loads are contracted directly to us, the problem arises when a DC insist you split 4 pallets down into 36 :open_mouth: when they’ve come through a pallet network, needless to say they were refused BY US. When they eventually went back after a chat with the supplier it took the driver 4 hours to sort it. This happens regularly with samples, which don’t normally need booking references (YOU GOT IT mr security at M&S), but the guys and gals on loading bays insist that they’re split onto separate pallets.

As most firms work to RHA conditions of carriage, unless an agreement is in place for the driver to unload or do extras (ooo-err) then said driver should contact his office, not moaning but just to put them in the picture as the driver doesn’t usually know what the supplier has agreed/paid for.

You must be crazy, if they said to me split that down to 36 pallets…i know my answer…as said by another op on here while ever you do it they will let you…your providing cheap labour at your expense not your company who contracted the delivery, im afraid it just doesnt happen in my case…it goes back or YOU tip it simple realy.