ArcticMonkey:
Did Palletways on nights for years. It’s the most awful place to go. Got banned about 4 times over the course of 6 years for various misdemeanors. I would rather go on the dole than ever step foot in that place again. Lorry drivers are scum down there.
For years? Good God, you deserve a medal! I think it’s just such a dreadful place that it makes drivers angry and stressed. I mean, the first time I went there the first thing I noticed is that no one smiled. Everyone was like, get me out of here quick. There’s just a sort of nasty and evil presence about the place and for those that get offered a run there, don’t do it.
Yep, personal circumstances meant i had to do nights and the pay was decent but as you say there is like an evil presence at that place. The office bods as a whole are a bunch of ignorant ■■■■■ and the forkies treat you like ■■■■. Obviously there are a few who work there who are decent but they’re very few and far between. Very strict on h&s now after a few drivers were killed on the job, so don’t ever climb on your trailer or it’s an immediate ban from site for a few weeks and then you have to go back in and watch a safety video. Also forkies do take bribes to get you tipped or loaded quicker. They also have a bloke who hides behind a fence and jumps out if you are breaking the 10mph speed limit
Carryfast:
Hub systems are the devils work.It’s a stupid flawed idea which ultimately requires more time,more people and more trucks to do the same job that could be done by direct depot to depot trailer swaps.
Rubbish. Take the TPN depot I did a few years ago. There is no way in hell it could handle having 121 trailers turning up every single night, one from every depot in the network nor could it afford to run the amount of units and trailers it would need to as well. Nor would having one trailer visiting several depots one at a time given the timescales involved to provide a next day nationwide delivery.
corij:
johnny foreigner seems to be working long hours a real grafter by UK standards but look closer its rarely the case . hes job sharing and in his time off engaged in theft or several fiddles to bulk up the money. i heard about one who moonlighted doing washing machine maintenance in local laundrette when he was taking the back off to check on the belts some had a bit of metal inside to deflect a certain amount of coins into the casing for him to take home later
Thats rather a sweeping statement, Xenophobic in the extreme, I work with people from all over Europe and beyond and almost all with very few exceptions a decent honest and honourable men who have come to this country settled bought property and have started a family.
If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.
On the other hand you have the home grown talent who I personally would not employ to sweep the yard and empty the bins, I often work in the office covering holidays and so on and nearly all the idiotic stupidity and riduculous levels of wet nursing goes to drivers with English as there first language (and most of these are unable to speak correctly) some of the calls I take are frankly quite painful and pitiful to listen to.
Sad but true.
but with a brit you can see what he is ,i mean a sneaky sort easy to spot . iv employed one south american and 2 polish. id never do it again. the south american almost pulled me under thieving and even after hed gone caused grief tried claiming compo after a 5mph shunt . i had to put the word out he was an illegal immigrant in the fight back . then a firm he drove for went under a year after hed joined em. thing is if you met him you couldnt tell he was a [zb] because of the accent you cannot tell
heres a tip i can pass on,if ever youre interviewing or have to make a decision on anyone. tell them theres a red flag has popped up by their name its something to do with their past,were you ever banned ? go on to say you cant make a decision till its been looked into- how they answer this is a test of their character
Grandpa:
I think the change is a lot more recent. In the last decade you got a huge influx of foreigners who said we can do anything for three times what we get paid in our own countries and employers obviously took advantage of that. The ‘runs’ then became tailored to break neck levels and over time have now become normal. The same in the warehouses, where you barely now get an English native speaker and they all work at minimum wage, with target levels on long hour shifts.
Silver_Surfer:
You could try the parcel carriers as well, TNT, Fed Ex, Hermes, UPS and the like. All box trailer’s.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I tried Hermes, the one with the built in classroom near the transport office (seriously). Passed the written for the agency and failed the Hermes one. Eventually, I might have to go back and do it again until I pass.
ArcticMonkey:
Did Palletways on nights for years. It’s the most awful place to go. Got banned about 4 times over the course of 6 years for various misdemeanors. I would rather go on the dole than ever step foot in that place again. Lorry drivers are scum down there.
For years? Good God, you deserve a medal! I think it’s just such a dreadful place that it makes drivers angry and stressed. I mean, the first time I went there the first thing I noticed is that no one smiled. Everyone was like, get me out of here quick. There’s just a sort of nasty and evil presence about the place and for those that get offered a run there, don’t do it.
Yep, personal circumstances meant i had to do nights and the pay was decent but as you say there is like an evil presence at that place. The office bods as a whole are a bunch of ignorant [zb] and the forkies treat you like [zb]. Obviously there are a few who work there who are decent but they’re very few and far between. Very strict on h&s now after a few drivers were killed on the job, so don’t ever climb on your trailer or it’s an immediate ban from site for a few weeks and then you have to go back in and watch a safety video. Also forkies do take bribes to get you tipped or loaded quicker. They also have a bloke who hides behind a fence and jumps out if you are breaking the 10mph speed limit
I only worked there for three nights and never again. I didn’t believe the ‘bribes’ at first, but was told if you didn’t get on with the FLT drivers you’d suffer. So the guy I spoke with told me he brings in some sweets or cakes to get on the right side of them. What kind of a job is that where you have to fork out for goodies every night to get your job done?! Pulling back the curtains and strapping them onto the rear doors four to five times a night … No, it was physically and time wise just too much.
I can well believe people have died there and I bet their shunting accident rate is high. No, I’d never go near that place again.
So what we had was a huge influx of East European economic migrants. They couldn’t compete in language or road knowledge, but what they could do is work themselves ragged and run at a maximum pace.
Or as Mike68 says; ‘If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.’ That’s exactly what produced the mess the transport is in now.
That standard became the norm against which we had to compete. The businesses loved it and had a heyday. Eventually they burned themselves out, but the workload remained as it proved it could be done, but with an ageing native workforce it’s become almost impossible. In my area there are now three to four major firms that can’t find enough drivers and they’re all maxed out runs that no one wants to go near, not even the East Europeans anymore.
That’s what many businesses are complaining about now when they say they can’t find drivers and what you hear about here when people describe their totally unrealistic shift runs and often the physical effort required.
It isn’t just logistics; care work, office, retail, security … Everyone is working themselves into the ground and competing for whatever few jobs remain and all at a few pennies more than a minimum wage. Me, I’ll take just about anything that comes up now, driving or not that I can physically do and I’ll admit it, it’s a struggle to find anything.
Grandpa:
So what we had was a huge influx of East European economic migrants. They couldn’t compete in language or road knowledge, but what they could do is work themselves ragged and run at a maximum pace.
Or as Mike68 says; ‘If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.’ That’s exactly what produced the mess the transport is in now.
That standard became the norm against which we had to compete. The businesses loved it and had a heyday. Eventually they burned themselves out, but the workload remained as it proved it could be done, but with an ageing native workforce it’s become almost impossible. In my area there are now three to four major firms that can’t find enough drivers and they’re all maxed out runs that no one wants to go near, not even the East Europeans anymore.
That’s what many businesses are complaining about now when they say they can’t find drivers and what you hear about here when people describe their totally unrealistic shift runs and often the physical effort required.
It isn’t just logistics; care work, office, retail, security … Everyone is working themselves into the ground and competing for whatever few jobs remain and all at a few pennies more than a minimum wage. Me, I’ll take just about anything that comes up now, driving or not that I can physically do and I’ll admit it, it’s a struggle to find anything.
Summing it up then:
Employers cutting pay,
Employers asking too much work,
Deaths in the workplace,
All the above is the fault of immigrants?
OK. That clearly absolves the Government and employers of any responsibility.
Grandpa:
So what we had was a huge influx of East European economic migrants. They couldn’t compete in language or road knowledge, but what they could do is work themselves ragged and run at a maximum pace.
Or as Mike68 says; ‘If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.’ That’s exactly what produced the mess the transport is in now.
That standard became the norm against which we had to compete. The businesses loved it and had a heyday. Eventually they burned themselves out, but the workload remained as it proved it could be done, but with an ageing native workforce it’s become almost impossible. In my area there are now three to four major firms that can’t find enough drivers and they’re all maxed out runs that no one wants to go near, not even the East Europeans anymore.
That’s what many businesses are complaining about now when they say they can’t find drivers and what you hear about here when people describe their totally unrealistic shift runs and often the physical effort required.
It isn’t just logistics; care work, office, retail, security … Everyone is working themselves into the ground and competing for whatever few jobs remain and all at a few pennies more than a minimum wage. Me, I’ll take just about anything that comes up now, driving or not that I can physically do and I’ll admit it, it’s a struggle to find anything.
Summing it up then:
Employers cutting pay,
Employers asking too much work,
Deaths in the workplace,
All the above is the fault of immigrants?
OK. That clearly absolves the Government and employers of any responsibility.
I don’t know where you get your fantasies from Franglais.
Employees have not cut pay. It’s just stagnant.
Employers ‘demanding’ too much work. Yes, if the hard working immigrants can do it, that’s what happened.
Deaths (and accidents) in the workplace have always happened, but are more likely to happen in a mad stressed out rush.
The government let in the economic migrants. The employers took advantage of the competitiveness. The migrants cut their own throats by working so hard they worked themselves and everyone else out of the previous workload.
Read through the thread again and read the stories. What did you expect would happen if tens of thousands of low paid Eastern Europeans descended into the logistics sector? You thought the workload would go down and the hourly rate up?
Grandpa:
So what we had was a huge influx of East European economic migrants. They couldn’t compete in language or road knowledge, but what they could do is work themselves ragged and run at a maximum pace.
Or as Mike68 says; ‘If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.’ That’s exactly what produced the mess the transport is in now.
That standard became the norm against which we had to compete. The businesses loved it and had a heyday. Eventually they burned themselves out, but the workload remained as it proved it could be done, but with an ageing native workforce it’s become almost impossible. In my area there are now three to four major firms that can’t find enough drivers and they’re all maxed out runs that no one wants to go near, not even the East Europeans anymore.
That’s what many businesses are complaining about now when they say they can’t find drivers and what you hear about here when people describe their totally unrealistic shift runs and often the physical effort required.
It isn’t just logistics; care work, office, retail, security … Everyone is working themselves into the ground and competing for whatever few jobs remain and all at a few pennies more than a minimum wage. Me, I’ll take just about anything that comes up now, driving or not that I can physically do and I’ll admit it, it’s a struggle to find anything.
Summing it up then:
Employers cutting pay,
Employers asking too much work,
Deaths in the workplace,
All the above is the fault of immigrants?
OK. That clearly absolves the Government and employers of any responsibility.
I don’t know where you get your fantasies from Franglais.
Employees have not cut pay. It’s just stagnant.
Employers ‘demanding’ too much work. Yes, if the hard working immigrants can do it, that’s what happened.
Deaths (and accidents) in the workplace have always happened, but are more likely to happen in a mad stressed out rush.
The government let in the economic migrants. The employers took advantage of the competitiveness. The migrants cut their own throats by working so hard they worked themselves and everyone else out of the previous workload.
Read through the thread again and read the stories. What did you expect would happen if tens of thousands of former low paid Eastern Europeans descended into the logistics sector? You thought the workload would go down and the hourly rate up?
Carryfast:
Hub systems are the devils work.It’s a stupid flawed idea which ultimately requires more time,more people and more trucks to do the same job that could be done by direct depot to depot trailer swaps.
Rubbish. Take the TPN depot I did a few years ago. There is no way in hell it could handle having 121 trailers turning up every single night, one from every depot in the network nor could it afford to run the amount of units and trailers it would need to as well. Nor would having one trailer visiting several depots one at a time given the timescales involved to provide a next day nationwide delivery.
Strange how I never even knew what a hub system was or meant until the mid 1990’s in that case.With a Next Day network covering all of the country.The longest of which in my case just involving a Scottish changeover.All the others being either a single depot trailer swap like Feltham to Exeter or Dewsbury,or two different return runs like Feltham to Southampton first then Feltham to Bristol or vice versa,or two return trips to the same depot like Kilworth or Bristol and lastly the best and my favourite idea of a drawbar outfit being used to cover two different depots.Feltham/Luton for freight trunked to Dewsbury and return in my case.Proving that one vehicle can cover two different depots at the same time.So a full shift made up of almost all driving with one demount box swap and one trailer swap.
As opposed two hours driving,5 hours handball in the warehouse and two hours driving back to base,if we were lucky.Oh and a trailer swap which still meant two trailers needed for each run because the trailer we loaded to go back with wasn’t the one we took there.After it was tipped it was taken off the dock by the shunters and left parked up at the hub.( Tip and Turn ).
Grandpa:
So what we had was a huge influx of East European economic migrants. They couldn’t compete in language or road knowledge, but what they could do is work themselves ragged and run at a maximum pace.
Or as Mike68 says; ‘If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.’ That’s exactly what produced the mess the transport is in now.
That standard became the norm against which we had to compete. The businesses loved it and had a heyday. Eventually they burned themselves out, but the workload remained as it proved it could be done, but with an ageing native workforce it’s become almost impossible. In my area there are now three to four major firms that can’t find enough drivers and they’re all maxed out runs that no one wants to go near, not even the East Europeans anymore.
That’s what many businesses are complaining about now when they say they can’t find drivers and what you hear about here when people describe their totally unrealistic shift runs and often the physical effort required.
It isn’t just logistics; care work, office, retail, security … Everyone is working themselves into the ground and competing for whatever few jobs remain and all at a few pennies more than a minimum wage. Me, I’ll take just about anything that comes up now, driving or not that I can physically do and I’ll admit it, it’s a struggle to find anything.
Summing it up then:
Employers cutting pay,
Employers asking too much work,
Deaths in the workplace,
All the above is the fault of immigrants?
OK. That clearly absolves the Government and employers of any responsibility.
I don’t know where you get your fantasies from Franglais.
Employees have not cut pay. It’s just stagnant.
Employers ‘demanding’ too much work. Yes, if the hard working immigrants can do it, that’s what happened.
Deaths (and accidents) in the workplace have always happened, but are more likely to happen in a mad stressed out rush.
The government let in the economic migrants. The employers took advantage of the competitiveness. The migrants cut their own throats by working so hard they worked themselves and everyone else out of the previous workload.
Read through the thread again and read the stories. What did you expect would happen if tens of thousands of low paid Eastern Europeans descended into the logistics sector? You thought the workload would go down and the hourly rate up?
The trouble is in inconsistency.
If those immigrants aren’t coming over here skivving and sponging off the state, then they’re coming over here working too hard.
Just goes to show how untrustworthy they all are.
All this talk of East Euros being hardworking
… My sides are aching from laughing so much. The ones employed at my place flat refuse to night out and are always demanding to finish early so they can take their goldfish to the vets.
Once they got their feet under the table they are just as bad as British drivers.
All they are good for in the bosses eyes, is to help stagnate the wages, not just for HGV drivers but across the whole working class workforce.
This isn’t EE bashing but a blast at both our political elite and professional elite that both wanted a workforce willing to work for a little less to help inflate their own salaries.
Grandpa:
So what we had was a huge influx of East European economic migrants. They couldn’t compete in language or road knowledge, but what they could do is work themselves ragged and run at a maximum pace.
Or as Mike68 says; ‘If I ran my own trucks I would employ a good many of them, you give them the keys the paperwork and thats the last you see or hear of them until the job is complete.’ That’s exactly what produced the mess the transport is in now.
That standard became the norm against which we had to compete. The businesses loved it and had a heyday. Eventually they burned themselves out, but the workload remained as it proved it could be done, but with an ageing native workforce it’s become almost impossible. In my area there are now three to four major firms that can’t find enough drivers and they’re all maxed out runs that no one wants to go near, not even the East Europeans anymore.
That’s what many businesses are complaining about now when they say they can’t find drivers and what you hear about here when people describe their totally unrealistic shift runs and often the physical effort required.
It isn’t just logistics; care work, office, retail, security … Everyone is working themselves into the ground and competing for whatever few jobs remain and all at a few pennies more than a minimum wage. Me, I’ll take just about anything that comes up now, driving or not that I can physically do and I’ll admit it, it’s a struggle to find anything.
Summing it up then:
Employers cutting pay,
Employers asking too much work,
Deaths in the workplace,
All the above is the fault of immigrants?
OK. That clearly absolves the Government and employers of any responsibility.
I don’t know where you get your fantasies from Franglais.
Employees have not cut pay. It’s just stagnant.
Employers ‘demanding’ too much work. Yes, if the hard working immigrants can do it, that’s what happened.
Deaths (and accidents) in the workplace have always happened, but are more likely to happen in a mad stressed out rush.
The government let in the economic migrants. The employers took advantage of the competitiveness. The migrants cut their own throats by working so hard they worked themselves and everyone else out of the previous workload.
Read through the thread again and read the stories. What did you expect would happen if tens of thousands of low paid Eastern Europeans descended into the logistics sector? You thought the workload would go down and the hourly rate up?
The trouble is in inconsistency.
If those immigrants aren’t coming over here skivving and sponging off the state, then they’re coming over here working too hard.
Just goes to show how untrustworthy they all are.
I’m not going to keep banging my head against a wall with you Franglais, but think back only 10 years and compare it to now. If you think the economic migrants play no part in this you’re living in a dream world.
Why did employers increase the workload to unmanageable levels? If we natives wouldn’t do that level of work previously, who would? Why would employers increase pay when the economic migrants were happy to earn three times what they did back home? Why are the warehouses filled with foreigners? Haven’t you ever sat down and wondered why the logistics sector started to change for the worse at just the time the competitive economic immigrants arrived? Ditto in the warehouses, and retail, and security and the care sector …
I don’t blame the migrants and if we could find a country that would pay three times what we earn an hour now we’d probably all go as well. Yet it is what it is and now even the foreigners can’t hack the workload level they set and everyone is suffering. You’re right when you say the employers and government are responsible, but what is happening now couldn’t and didn’t happen previously without opening the borders to economic migrant competitiveness.
It’s not difficult Franglais, if you’re working you don’t even need google to spell out the collapsing logistics industry from what it once was, you can see it with your own eyes. Would you recommend HGV as a career now from ten years ago? Yet there is one section that will do it and they arrived in their tens of thousands and share a large portion of blame from the mess it’s now in. They came to compete and instead destroyed the job.
‘Transport Operator has questioned ten former truck drivers about the reasons why they left the industry. They all cited stress as a major factor – highlighting unrealistic scheduling and aggressive micromanagement by telematics, overzealous enforcement, and the aggressive or distracted behavior of other road users as key irritants.’
‘The Road Haulage Association says it is short of 60,000 drivers, with an ageing workforce shedding another 40,000 by next year. Employers told the committee how hard they try to attract drivers – but plainly not that hard. They all want ready-made, fully trained drivers with several years’ experience. Many turn abroad, hiring 60,000 mainly eastern Europeans …’
msgyorkie:
All this talk of East Euros being hardworking
All they are good for in the bosses eyes, is to help stagnate the wages, not just for HGV drivers but across the whole working class workforce.
This isn’t EE bashing but a blast at both our political elite and professional elite that both wanted a workforce willing to work for a little less to help inflate their own salaries.
msgyorkie:
All this talk of East Euros being hardworking
… My sides are aching from laughing so much. The ones employed at my place flat refuse to night out and are always demanding to finish early so they can take their goldfish to the vets.
Once they got their feet under the table they are just as bad as British drivers.
All they are good for in the bosses eyes, is to help stagnate the wages, not just for HGV drivers but across the whole working class workforce.
This isn’t EE bashing but a blast at both our political elite and professional elite that both wanted a workforce willing to work for a little less to help inflate their own salaries.
I think they were hardworking initially and lacking the language and road knowledge it’s the only way they could be competitive. Before them decades ago were the Asians who worked all hours till they dropped. I read that the economy is doing well, but looking around me I only see people both native and foreign who are struggling by on near minimum wages. Our minimum wage, not theirs.
Minimum wage Latvia 368 Euros a month (£92 per week). Poland 523 Euros a month (£112 per week). They came here and thought they’d won the lottery! Working themselves into the ground gave them the edge, but it completely destroyed the work economy. Talk to them and they’ll tell you that at first it was great, but not anymore and there’s a lot more than one I’ve spoken to that says they want to go home.
Grandpa:
I’m not going to keep banging my head against a wall with you Franglais, but think back only 10 years and compare it to now. If you think the economic migrants play no part in this you’re living in a dream world.
Why did employers increase the workload to unmanageable levels? If we natives wouldn’t do that level of work previously, who would? Why would employers increase pay when the economic migrants were happy to earn three times what they did back home? Why are the warehouses filled with foreigners? Haven’t you ever sat down and wondered why the logistics sector started to change for the worse at just the time the competitive economic immigrants arrived? Ditto in the warehouses, and retail, and security and the care sector …
I don’t blame the migrants and if we could find a country that would pay three times what we earn an hour now we’d probably all go as well. Yet it is what it is and now even the foreigners can’t hack the workload level they set and everyone is suffering. You’re right when you say the employers and government are responsible, but what is happening now couldn’t and didn’t happen previously without opening the borders to economic migrant competitiveness.
It’s not difficult Franglais, if you’re working you don’t even need google to spell out the collapsing logistics industry from what it once was, you can see it with your own eyes. Would you recommend HGV as a career now from ten years ago? Yet there is one section that will do it and they arrived in their tens of thousands and share a large portion of blame from the mess it’s now in. They came to compete and instead destroyed the job.
http://transportoperator.co.uk/2016/01/29/3568/ ‘Transport Operator has questioned ten former truck drivers about the reasons why they left the industry. They all cited stress as a major factor – highlighting unrealistic scheduling and aggressive micromanagement by telematics, overzealous enforcement, and the aggressive or distracted behavior of other road users as key irritants.’
A mirror vision of industrial failure – the UK lorry trade | Polly Toynbee | The Guardian ‘The Road Haulage Association says it is short of 60,000 drivers, with an ageing workforce shedding another 40,000 by next year. Employers told the committee how hard they try to attract drivers – but plainly not that hard. They all want ready-made, fully trained drivers with several years’ experience. Many turn abroad, hiring 60,000 mainly eastern Europeans …’
Ironically there obviously seems to be more East Euros having rightly made the choice to stay at home an earn less in a lower cost of living economy doing better quality work.Than earn around 100% more,or more like 10% more in real terms,per hour.For a job that requires 100% less driving and 100% more boring/heavy physical non driving work done in a shift.
Also do we hear these same issues within the German/French/Italian/Scandinavian road transport industries for example ?.IE possibly not as politically hamstrung regarding the premise of a truck being that of moving a lot of freight over a long distance.
Although having said all that possibly ‘our’ issues have more to do with an unrealistic retirement age regime.With me also being able to to understand and agree with everything which you’ve said,but not even looking for HGV work.
Glad I don’t work for these types of pallet companies as just going in and out of Palletforce is stressful and that’s a single shed (luckily don’t do often).
Only way to do pallet trunking is within the same companies depots, but there aren’t many who have that. Ours do, but pay probably not the best.
I only ever do Palletforce during the day so it’s obviously a lot quieter.
I’ve often wondered what it’s like at night. Manic I suspect. And how the queue works etc. Like is it an actual queue, is it a scramble for the door, do you get called in etc etc.
I worked for a Palletforce company for years before I retired. Mostly I worked days delivering and collecting, but I often did an evening/morning run to Burton.
The queue can be pretty long and there are two lanes; everyone just jogs forward every so often. As you get to the back of the shed, you pull your curtains and when it’s your turn, someone will point you to the correct door (You have a number in your screen so they know which depot you are). Inside, you have to wait for a gap to unload in - I think there are around eight lanes of six or eight lorries all being unloaded at the same time. They take your keys and you stay in the cab - the safest place to be anyway as the FLT’s are bonkers.
Loading is the reverse - only the very furthest depots do both at the same time as they arrive late and leave early; often double manned. We were pretty local so tiped around 7pm/8pm and loaded at 5am.
Once you know the routine (newbies get a sign for their screen so the handlers know) it’s all pretty easy.
I think it’s just such a dreadful place that it makes drivers angry and stressed. I mean, the first time I went there the first thing I noticed is that no one smiled. Everyone was like, get me out of here quick. There’s just a sort of nasty and evil presence about the place and for those that get offered a run there, don’t do it.
