miketdt:
I think you will grow old and grey working as a lorry driver before you see £15 per hour for LGV driving.
So if you like driving so much, train to become a driving instructor on cars 1st , you will earn £20 to £22 per hour self employed.
If you choose to teach LGV you will only get £12 per hour. It’s your life go for it you will only live it once.
AAAggghhhh!!! I made it clear that £15/hour is unrealistic…
Self employed driving instructors have a car and a business to run so they will make nowhere near £22/hour profit. Have you seen the price of fuel?
miketdt:
I think you will grow old and grey working as a lorry driver before you see £15 per hour for LGV driving.
So if you like driving so much, train to become a driving instructor on cars 1st , you will earn £20 to £22 per hour self employed.
If you choose to teach LGV you will only get £12 per hour. It’s your life go for it you will only live it once.
AAAggghhhh!!! I made it clear that £15/hour is unrealistic…
Self employed driving instructors have a car and a business to run so they will make nowhere near £22/hour profit. Have you seen the price of fuel?
Also you would be sat in the passenger seat trying to guide a learner around the same streets and town day in day out.You may as well become a bus driver,at least you would be behind the wheel.
I agree, but with the way things are just now im just happy to have a steady job that pays my bills. So while I might not be on anything like £15 ph, i see myself as one of the fortunate ones and grateful for what i’ve got right now.
miketdt:
I think you will grow old and grey working as a lorry driver before you see £15 per hour for LGV driving.
So if you like driving so much, train to become a driving instructor on cars 1st , you will earn £20 to £22 per hour self employed.
If you choose to teach LGV you will only get £12 per hour. It’s your life go for it you will only live it once.
earn £20 / £22 or turn over? there’s a difference!
driving schools is an oversubscribed industry that’s had real terms rate cuts.
Truckulent:
No need for businesses to pay drivers low wages.
Really explain how and why they should, would or could pay more within the confines of the free market economy ■■?
Have you seen the profits these people make■■? Tesco? Asda? Morrisons? for example.Hmmm no margin there at all to pay the people they would have no business without more than £8 an hour is there■■? They barely make ends meet in their business
and how many of “these people” run there own motors ■■ Hardly representative of the industry in general
Given a free choice, a lot of drivers would happily work for low wages - one glance at this post is enough to see that. Apathy abounds and you ain’t a proper trucker until you graft till you’re [zb] for as little reward as possible…how dare anyone suggest drivers should get more pay? Disgraceful of the OP to even suggest it…obviously he isn’t a real truck driver expecting to get paid adecent wage and not have to work 60+ hours a week to achieve it…
I’m happy enough and have reason to be (see my post above) and when I’m not happy I do something about it, personally, me, myself, on my own. Always have done always will do without the need to fuss or the need of backing nor official intervention.
There are still a lot out there that are happy with their ScanDAFMANTopinerXF to polish and a few crumbs from the rich man’s table…
Nowt as crazy as a lorry driver…
Ahh the crux of the matter eh ? Them that have and them that wish they had it. The rich man became a rich man, and your boss, with his big fancy car and house by taking the risks, showing the initiative, having the motivation and drive. More importantly in the beginning he would have carried the burden of risk too. Still I suppose he could forsake the pleasures he’s earned and drive around in a mk3 ■■■■■■ so as not to offend the oppressed masses eh comrade ■■.
So what your suggesting is lets work for poor pay because my boss is great, 'cos he runs a few wagons?? Does that apply to all the big companies as well?
If you take your hypothesis to it’s logical conclusion, we should be grateful for just getting food for our labour…Yeah, at least we’ve all got a job…why don’t we petition to be allowed to drive 12 hours a day then the boss will be able to shaft us even more?
I never suggested that at all so don’t add your spin to my words to prove your angry points my good man
In my case I am already my own boss and I do not work for some national company that thinks £7.50/hour is a fair wage. Indeed I have occasionally earned £15/hour as a driver so it can be done, though granted certainly not all the time. I do not think for a moment that drivers should earn the same as the one who has taken the risks, that isn’t how business works. I merely suggest that drivers should be paid a fair percentage and having to work 60+hours a week to earn that percentage is basically unjust. Most posts on here state that companies can’t afford to pay drivers any more. This I will believe when all the managers/clerical staff in all logistics operations work 60+ hours a week for £7.25/hour…why must it be the drivers that suffer??
For the most part a lot of clerical and managerial tasks are carried out within the confines of the 9 - 5 day so it would be difficult to make a livable wage on those hours at a small hourly rate. FYI most clerical transport staff will be on less the drivers anyway so that’s that idea out the window
Is it really so bad to want to be paid a fair rate? Do you really think that current wages are fair doing 60-80 hours a week to earn the same as most folk do in 37.5 hours?
Plenty of drivers are happy, but if we had no minimum wage what then■■? What would be your minimum acceptable rate per hour■■?
My minimum wage is and always has been dictated by me. I’ve worked successfully in most areas of the business over the years and what guides the work I do at any one time is money. When a particular type of work becomes less profitable to me I move, sometimes companies and other times areas and even countries. I don’t sit on my jacksy driving a particular type of lorry, doing a particular type of work because “that’s what I do” then whine when I’m not happy or poorer than I should be. Life and the world economies change, get over it, there’s nothing any of us can do to change that.
and for what it’s worth I earn more than my boss and have a better car
I prefer to surf the tides of fortune rather than stand ■■■■ style yelling at the tides
start naming me industries that don’t think they deserve more pay. (it’ll be quicker than the other way about!)
so lets say we get our £15, but it’s only fair all the other under paid industries get their rise. so would you be happy on £15 if everything else cost double?
all this ■■■■■■■■ about holding the country to ransom, please what if IT geeks went on strike, i think you’d notice that pretty quick. or even the fabled trucknet favourite, the shelf stacker. as you’re thinking of loads of different industries for the above question, have another list of important jobs that could do the ransom thing to show everyone what they’re worth!!
the train driver argument doesn’t hold up as it’s not a free market like truck drivers, you can’t nip into your local independent full size hornby school for a start.
the point of business is to make money, sell for as much as you can whilst spending as little as you can to retain as much as you can for profit. just because a firm is making millions doesn’t mean it has to pay it’s staff any more than a firm that’s just keeping it’s head above water.
if you don’t like the wage you can achieve by driving a truck, then go and do something else, once enough people have left the wage will rise until enough people are attracted to sit behind the wheel. society effectively sets the wage, as is the case for the vast majority of jobs. so sit here and moan about it all you want, it won’t do ■■■■ all, as by staying driving you’re saying it’s offering you more than anything else.
forget all the ■■■■■■■■ about sticking together, we’re individuals, with different ideas on life etc
stevie - off to bed in the real world. goodnight to everyone, be it in the real world or the other one
Coffeeholic:
A national Facebook campaign for better wages?
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darren1000:
This is a licensed industry, not just anybody can do it, its a skilled job with responsibility
Half a dozen days training and you can add the C and then +E to a car licence, hardly a skilled job that not just anybody can do is it?
I could be an MP, City Dealer, Union Boss, Mayor, or lots of other jobs for which I’m already qualified, but don’t know the right number people to get the job. These jobs are highly paid not because no one wants to do it (as if market forces were the reason) but because you need popular support - which few of us have, even the fitter, better looking, and wealthier guys out there.
You can already get more than £15ph in London - if you’re prepared to work nights & weekends. Trouble is, when agencies take you on offering such rates, they really want a stand-in for the stand-in for the regular guy who’ve covering for some union rep who’s having the snip and will only be off a few days… Let’s see if that picture changes with Easter coming early this year…
In this part of the world Hiab/Tipper work is abundant, and lousily paid (You might just get £10ph in London which I consider to be not worth chasing a HIAB ticket for!)
C1 London store drops seems to be the best paid at nearly double the hourly rates for 17t work outside of london. Nice work if you can get it. I’m still waiting to open my account here.
truckyboy:
This job has never paid a decent wage, it has however paid a livable wage, and i guess it depends on who you work for, or how your paid. It has always been a governments idea to pay a low wage, but to encourage workers to earn more, whilst working longer, so its much better to earn a salary rather than an hourly rate. Our company could be called an own account operator, and can therefore look at the profits and pay accordingly. We are on just under £32 grand a year + nights out, and thats on a 5.6.5.6. rosta, but no chance of overtime. The problem with a salary is the hours you are made to work, there are no fixed hours, and you have to work according to the work load given, but on saying that, its a company who is 110% legal, all the vehicles/trailers are not that old ( they use to change them every 3 years, what we have now is a 5 yr deal ) the conditions are very good, the work is clean, and they leave you alone. We do employ foreign drivers, and they earn the same as everyone else after the probationary period. With agency staff they do earn more ( especially bank holidays, xmas etc ) cos we dont get paid extra ourselves being on a salary, and its a lot easier for our manager to phone the agency and ask them for 10 drivers for tomorrow or whatever, rather than advertise for part timers/casual, although we do have a few of those, myself included, but as for the £15 an hour, keep dreaming, it will not happen for a very long time, the countries in recession, the countries broke, employers are struggling, and only the fittest will survive.
In this neck of the woods, Agencies get offered all the BHs because they only get the sunday rate which might be 1.2x and that’s it. Full timers WOULD get maybe double time IF they get the BH as OVERTIME but either they are scheduled in (flat rate salary) or they don’t get it as OT because it’s all been given out to agencies for less than time and a quarter.
I don’t have a clue what agencies get for working the Easter weeks, as I’ve not been agency at this time of the year before.
It is a disgrace in my book that a “normal” working week is considered 35-40 hours and there are many transport firms “salarying” people on 50+ hours a week! A 50 hour week should be 40 hours basic plus 10 hours built in overtime - NOT 50 hours at flat rate, what with the expectation you work your rosta of BH/Weekends for no extra and all!
I reckon a proper national union would have stopped this “creep” thats taken reasonable T&C’s down so low these past few years. Imagine how much they must laugh at us “WTD opt-out freaks” outside of this country. Here, opting out is conditional to you getting offered the job it seems!
44 Tonne Ton:
Many of you speak as though £15ph is a lot of money, it’s not. Forty hours a week at that rate is £31,200pa and there’s certainly some on here who could claim to be earning at that rate. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them!
A lot do earn that much, but for 70 hours.
Although I usually drive for 40 hours (ISH)
And work about 5 hours. The rest is sitting around. So at just under 600a week take home I guess i’m on about 15 quid an hour!
As for the OP, it must be spring because I can hear a cuckoo
I agree with you happysack. If I count fastening curtain buckles, securing load straps and sweeping trailers as physical work I probably do the same.
Does anybody really think that we are being paid to listen to silly stories in drivers waiting rooms?
bakerchris:
So how is it that fuel companies can pay drivers 15£ ?
Anyone can go do an ADR course in about a week and then you’re qualified on petrol tankers,
plus a bit of on the job training
Hiya the reson fuel delivery drivers get good pay…years ago the union worked very hard for the
drivers, getting delivery pay for multi drops danger money and a few other freebies. in the 90,s
that all stopped(the tanker men was on £800 a week)the petrol companies got hired transport in.
These rates was very good so the drivers picked up a decent wage…word had got about what the
petrol company men had been paid… the hired companies had to pay up…i do know that if the
tanker drivers are earning £15 per hour. god they are working for that pay… i work in stanlow some
times… the tankers don’t have a second to themselves plus half the time ther’re off work with stress.
That job is chase …chase… chase the driver dose the loading the tipping there,s a window for all these
operations… i would’nt do that job for £30 per hour they never stop.
800+ tanker loads a day go from stanlow. there are 16 gantries for loading
that works out at 32 tankers per hour on 16 gantries… will it take less that 30 min to load each tank
John
I think many of you under value your skill, other industries have inflated there pay in the past however transport have gone the other way, most of the inefficicences from supply chains have been pushed out of the system and now the driver have suffer them. ie waiting times, different start times each day, not knowing your finish time. This I believe is why we should be paid £15 an hour to compensate for being messed about.
Consider this, most public service bodies are stuffed with middle managers on 50k for a 37.5h week, most are useless at what they do and would not last a day in the private sector, if they didnt turn up for work tomorrow no one would notice or miss them, however if there was no trucks on the road tomorrow the country would stop and the economy would soon clapse. That is why I think drivers should be paid a decent living wage and not be forced to work 60 a week to make one.
For those of you who are worried about putting extra costs on your company in difficult times consider this, just about all transport is now contracted out (Most to 4 big international companies) so if any costs were added they would be passed on to there customers ie supermarkets and multi national companies who are still making billions and who could bare the costs. They are the people who have stole you waged over the years and are making huge profits from our grief.
I suspect some transport managers have commented on this and have a different out look.
Should abolish POA and enforce the 48hour average week, then companies would have to pay a decent hourly rate to provide a liveable wage. Otherwise everyone would leave the industry and then firms would be forced to raise wages to attract drivers. The biggest single detriment to drivers wages is the expansion of the EU and influx of foreign workers, simple laws of supply and demand, more workers than jobs = wages going down.
Henrys cat:
to the last 2 posters, how do you work out that abloishing the WTD would help?
The way to get it to help is make the 48hrs from book on to book off, that would try and do what your looking for.
That was my intent with the abolishing POA, if you are sitting around on POA for four-five hours a day that’s where your 60 hour week comes from. Also may get some of these RDCs to buck their ideas up and stop holding you up for ages.
Surely theres only one way to do a job and thats to do it right. 