From an unidentified transport company, let’s call them Burners of Blowham for the sake of argument:
To All Drivers
In line with company policy, we cannot pay any driver for working over 60 hours per week, not including breaks.
The Road Transport Directive 2005 states that the ‘legal maximum working time is 60 hours’
With immediate effect, hours worked over 60 hours per week, will be recovered from the driver’s wages. The deduction will be made the week following when the offence was identified.
P.I. Staker
Manager
What the actual ■■■■■ They deduct a penny piece out of my wages and I’ll have the barstewards in court for unauthorised wage deductions. My planner’s also in for a treat the next time he plans me a day’s work over 12 hours, too.
12 hours, job done or not park up …simple, problem is you will always get the helmets that will carry on and work for ■■■■ all , and you can bet that their management are banking on it.
Exactly, what they are doing is saying that you can still do a 13 or a 14 hr day,if you do a 10 hr drive, we just won`t pay for your breaks, so basically they expect you to do 45min or 1 1/2 hrs without being paid. Luckily we get paid form when we start to when we finish. Think I would tell them to ■■■■ on it.
You cannot be sacked for refusing to work extra if you are an employee on an hourly rate if they wont pay you, so take the truck back so as to land in the yard on time to not go over the hours. Simples. Play the game, I would.
There are already too many firms that have already got their drivers working over 60 hours a week, despite being told by people like me that "to do it week in, week out is bent" - but I’m ‘just a git who can be safely ignored’ seems to be the general consensus.
It’s all up to drivers to grow a pair, and not be told “Hey bud, you can take home a meaty £500 per week IF you work 85 hours at minimum wage - times are 'ard you understand” (like they were last year, last decade, two decades ago right back to the late 1980’s FFS!)
When exactly was the last time that any working class person got told by their firm "Hey, we’ve made sooo much money these past five years, that we’re going to give you all a 50% across the board pay rise - no strings!"On a good day, you might be told “Hmmp. I guess the company budget can swallow a pay rise limited to the rate of inflation for our near-100% increase in profits over the past decade…”
Too many firms lost all sense of social responsibility to the workforce once Unions had their rights ripped away from them by Thatcher and co a long time since.
I’m no socialist, and I’ve never voted labour, but the pendulum has swung so far the other way that we all EXPECT firms to act like crooks nowdays, and yet we go cap in hand, and line up for the crappy pay and conditions jobs - because there’s not a lot of jobs around.
If we all boycotted full time, wages would rise - believe me!
If you don’t like the legal hours limitations limiting your pay, then just demand a decent hourly rate to make up for the capped hours!
Failure to do so means aiding and abetting the “race to the bottom” policy held by so many firms nowdays.
Simple answer to this Don’t work over 60 hours, at the begining of your last shift if you think you don’r have enough hours to do it refuse to go, they have to pay you for the full day by law once you have turned up for work … and I got that straight from my old employer in the UK, he told me that no matter what they may say, once the employee turns up even if he or she goes home sick they must be paid for the entire shift, now he is the boss of quite q large company and if he could get out of paying he would, but he followed the law.
i’d send them a letter and i’d ask for clarification regarding breaks and poa.
If my driving and working time is the same or less than 60 hours but my overall time at work including breaks is greater than 60 hours, Would i be paid the extra hours?
For example: Driving time 56 hours, breaks of 10 hours, other work of 4 hours, poa, 10 hours. Would i be paid for 60 hours or 80 hours?
If the answer is 80 hours, Then the memo is a simple arse covering exercise, If the answer is 60 hours, Then the memo is an excuse to cut your hours using an interpretation of the law.
claretmatt:
In line with company policy, we cannot pay any driver for working over 60 hours per week, not including breaks.
I would ask for some clarification, as (correct me if I am wrong) breaks and POA do not count towards the working week do they also exclude POA.
Also mention that you consider this memo to be an admission that the company intends to commit an illegal deduction of wages and reject it and also reserve the right to pursue the matter in a civil court if any deduction is made.
Also ask that Mr or Mrs Staker seeks expert/grown up advice before sending any more memos.
As others have said, make sure you’re back in the yard on or before the 60hr mark. Whether stuff gets brought back undelivered or not is their problem. Similarly if I was on for example 51hrs by the close of play on Thursday and they were planning a 15 for Friday I’d be tempted to refuse to do it.
It’s all about these two-bit, think-we’re-so-clever companies extorting drivers. The sooner they all go out of business or lose all their contracts, the better.
I too work for Burners of Blowham but out of a different depot, my contract is different to yours, I’m on a day rate, this week they really got their monies worth out of me 81hrs over 6 days, with 3 nights out. I haven’t had this memo, although all they would do if I got too close to 60hrs is stand me down without pay. I don’t expect to see this memo or similar as we can’t get enough drivers as it is. Many would leave if they were stood down.
I put on another thread the other day about drivers doing unpaid work, and got no response, it made me think that it was probably the done thing with some on here .
It was a mate who works for a walking floor co, who told me about some of the less intelligent drivers there, they all get paid a monthly salary mon to fri, but some of these idiots work anything from a half to a full driving limit on a Sunday UNPAID so they can…be first in the queue to get tipped on a Mon morning.
As long as idiots like these are eager, let alone willing, to work f.o.c. for firms that are willing to sit back and let them (while having a bloody good laugh at them) there will always be exploitation of this kind, in this industry.
claretmatt:
From an unidentified transport company, let’s call them Burners of Blowham for the sake of argument:
To All Drivers
In line with company policy, we cannot pay any driver for working over 60 hours per week, not including breaks.
The Road Transport Directive 2005 states that the ‘legal maximum working time is 60 hours’
With immediate effect, hours worked over 60 hours per week, will be recovered from the driver’s wages. The deduction will be made the week following when the offence was identified.
P.I. Staker
Manager
What the actual [zb]? They deduct a penny piece out of my wages and I’ll have the barstewards in court for unauthorised wage deductions. My planner’s also in for a treat the next time he plans me a day’s work over 12 hours, too.
you need clarification, but…
it sounds to me like they’re only talking about rtd / wtd hours and not timesheet hours, because they say the deduction will take place the following week after the offence was identified. if they were talking timesheet hours they wouldn’t need to deduct anything as they just wouldn’t pay anything over 60 hours in the 1st place.
They tried it when I worked for Swift Service years ago, we were told we would get 50 hours pay per week, job and finish, we spent a week refusing to work over 50 and all of us stopped when we hit the agree’d time, I was at Corley services with 2 others, one was at Toddington and 3 at Leicester forest east, it cost them a fortune to send drivers in cars to get us all and bring all the trucks in, they also had to pay us all night out pay, the very next week we were told if we worked over 50 we would be paid for it
If you don’t get paid for it don’t do it. This is why drivers in this industry are treated so badly , because we let them do it to us. Grow a pair, join the Union and stand up to the zb that you let do this to you. If you don’t, just lay down and let them walk all over you, but stop don’t moaning about it.
, and you can bet that their management are banking on it.
Don’t work over 60 hours, at the begining of your last shift if you think you don’r have enough hours to do it refuse to go, they have to pay you for the full day by law once you have turned up for work … and I got that straight from my old employer in the UK, he told me that no matter what they may say, once the employee turns up even if he or she goes home sick they must be paid for the entire shift, now he is the boss of quite q large company and if he could get out of paying he would, but he followed the law.
.