DrivingMissDaisy:
I was recently asked to work for Howdens at another location as they were having industrial issues which is common knowledge and has appeared in print. I have been asked this morning if I wanted to work for Howdens out of Goole, accommodation paid for as it’s out of my normal area. We all know why but apparently it’s news to the mods on this board who regarded my previous post as rumour and so pulled it. Am I stepping on someone’s toes here?
unitetheunion.org/news/unite … undancies/
runcornandwidnesweeklynews.c … -32711537/
I refused the work even though I’ve been scratching about recently.
I’ve done a ton of work out of there from 1992 to 2008. You were daft to refuse it as it pays bloody well and it is a doddle. It has to be one of the easiest most rewarding jobs in the industry. No rushing, everything is done by the rules, well maintained wagons, you’re paid a generous set amount per run which it is unbelievably easy to do the run in but also if you have a legitimate reason for going over (delays, breakdown etc) you get paid that extra and to an extent you’re even free to choose when you go in to start work on most of the runs.
Here’s a bit of background to it…
Originally Howden was Hygena and Widnes was Schreiber - all under the same parent company but separate. The vast majority of the transportation was done by Howden as most of the Schreiber stuff got dragged over to Howden on night trunks and run out of there with mostly stuff going direct to the west country running out Widnes. There was maybe a dozen wagons at most based at Widnes.
It then all became MFI and the same arrangements continued.
Then it went ■■■■ up and became Howdens Joinery. Over the next couple of years the transportation changed and DHL got involved. The day drivers employed by Howdens still did store deliveries but the night trunkers employed by the company and based in Howden, as well as DHL wagons coming in, would take trailers to various DHL depots throughout the country (Avonmouth, Radlett, Dumfries etc as well as Widnes which now was also run by DHL) and DHL day drivers would then do the store deliveries.
For some reason it all went a bit to crap on DHL’s part, partly because these depots started to use Howden’s Joinery’s trailers for their own work which wasn’t agreed, and Howdens Joinery decided to bring it all back in house.
Howdens is proposing to terminate its transport operations at Widnes on 4 February 2013 and relocate to a transport hub in Howden that is not yet in existence.
This is an outright lie. First of all Widnes is DHL drivers, not Howdens Joinery drivers so them leaving would be a consequence of DHL losing the contract. In regards to the Transport Hub, from the time it was Hygena all the way through to the current day there has been one at Howden with over 50 wagons and over 200 trailers on that site. The main traffic office for all three sites is and always has been based at Howden.
Unite should be asking DHL why they thought it was acceptable to risk drivers jobs using a customers trailers for their own work.
