MMTM - Polish drivers

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

Tipper Tom:

ROG:
If this country did not allow others to come and work here for scab wages then the employers would be forced to pay UK people a proper wage to do the job - isn’t that the truth ?

IMO its not that Uk people will not do the job but they will not do the job for a pittance of a wage

BALLS!

90% of the unemployed in this country don’t want to work and it’s bigots with the shame attitude as you that have given them the excuse.

All the immigrants taking our jobs. If the British worker was doing the job in the first place there wouldn’t be jobs for the immigrants to take. It’s not like companies are inventing roles for every one except Brits is it.

We the UK are easy pickings for immigrants because the average Briton is a lazy tired [zb] with an over inflated opinion of not only his worth to an employer but also his abilities.

One is worth exactly what an employer is willing to pay to get the job done and not a penny more.

You see and read it on this forum “I want £600+ for a weeks work doing 40 hours a week”

22

tachograph:

Daz1970:
Anybody watch Friday night prog. Harvest 2013? It featured a massive cherry farm. ALL fruit pickers were Eastern European (about 40 staff I think??)- not one British!!! Astounding.

It was hard work, long hours, but decent pay for those that got stuck in.

Well done to them for not skiving off, calling in sick, coming in hungover etc.etc. The Brits just won’t do it!! This ain’t the first prog. like this I’ve seen - I think there was one similar about veggie pickers around Boston, a few years back - again Brits weren’t interested/counldn’t be arsed. Incredible!!!

I never saw the programme but if the Brits wouldn’t do it, it would be interesting to know how the fruit and veg got picked before the Poles came here.

it was done by gypsies and a lot of people from London ect use to spend their holidays picking fruit to earn extra money :sunglasses: :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

23

mickyblue:

Tipper Tom:

ROG:
If this country did not allow others to come and work here for scab wages then the employers would be forced to pay UK people a proper wage to do the job - isn’t that the truth ?

IMO its not that Uk people will not do the job but they will not do the job for a pittance of a wage

BALLS!

90% of the unemployed in this country don’t want to work and it’s bigots with the shame attitude as you that have given them the excuse.

All the immigrants taking our jobs. If the British worker was doing the job in the first place there wouldn’t be jobs for the immigrants to take. It’s not like companies are inventing roles for every one except Brits is it.

We the UK are easy pickings for immigrants because the average Briton is a lazy tired [zb] with an over inflated opinion of not only his worth to an employer but also his abilities.

One is worth exactly what an employer is willing to pay to get the job done and not a penny more.

You see and read it on this forum “I want £600+ for a weeks work doing 40 hours a week”

Yep this just proves my point

24

Tipper Tom:

mickyblue:
You see and read it on this forum “I want £600+ for a weeks work doing 40 hours a week”

Yep this just proves my point

I can’t remember seeing anyone say they want £600 for a 40 hour week, but I could have missed those posts.

What about the people we see on these forums who are prepared to do the low paid and crap work just to get some experience.

Are they all east Europeans ?

25

tachograph:

Tipper Tom:

mickyblue:
You see and read it on this forum “I want £600+ for a weeks work doing 40 hours a week”

Yep this just proves my point

I can’t remember seeing anyone say they want £600 for a 40 hour week, but I could have missed those posts.

What about the people we see on these forums who are prepared to do the low paid and crap work just to get some experience.

Are they all east Europeans ?

I’ve said it before, if I was unemployed I’d work for next to nothing as long as it meant not claiming dole money. I think that’s called a work ethic.

26

I will do anything that will keep a roof over my head!

27

Tipper Tom:
I’ve said it before, if I was unemployed I’d work for next to nothing as long as it meant not claiming dole money. I think that’s called a work ethic.

Of cause it is, we see plenty of people on these forums saying pretty much the same thing, people who are prepared to do the low paid jobs in order to move their lives forward, and many of them are the Brits who some of you claim are so lazy.

28

tachograph:

Tipper Tom:
I’ve said it before, if I was unemployed I’d work for next to nothing as long as it meant not claiming dole money. I think that’s called a work ethic.

Of cause it is, we see plenty of people on these forums saying pretty much the same thing, people who are prepared to do the low paid jobs in order to move their lives forward, and many of them are the Brits who some of you claim are so lazy.

There are IMHO fewer Britons ready and willing to work than there are Eastern Europeans, if that wasn’t the case why would they be taking our jobs as so many seem to think?

29

Tipper Tom:

tachograph:

Tipper Tom:
I’ve said it before, if I was unemployed I’d work for next to nothing as long as it meant not claiming dole money. I think that’s called a work ethic.

Of cause it is, we see plenty of people on these forums saying pretty much the same thing, people who are prepared to do the low paid jobs in order to move their lives forward, and many of them are the Brits who some of you claim are so lazy.

There are IMHO fewer Britons ready and willing to work than there are Eastern Europeans, if that wasn’t the case why would they be taking our jobs as so many seem to think?

+1

30

double post

31

Roymondo:
Apparently, Poland still has its equivalent of National Service. At the end of their two years’ military service, they are all issued with a C&E licence even if they have never driven an artic (or Wagon & Drag). Doesn’t seem right to me, but then again MMTM so it must be true…

  1. Poland’s national services was scrapped five years ago, as someone already wrote in this thread.

  2. They were never the situation, that “all were issued with C+E license”. Many of them, who were send to a logistics brigades were made to make their licences, C or C+E (or in some cases D or T) whatever the need of the army was. Indeed, going to the army was often seen as a good chance to get free driving license, but for me it is hardly a bargain.

  3. To make your driving license in the army, you were trained by the army, but then you had to come to the exam centre and pass as everyone else. I don’t know when it changed from interial exams, but at least in 1998 when I did my first license there was some army guys doing their C next to me. Saying that, there were cases of corruption, not only in the army, and some people obtained their licences illegaly, but I believe that to some extend Britain is also not immune to fraud. Apart from this cases, obviously you had to have sufficient driving experience to pass, more over, army guys usually were better trained, as they had much more than mandatory 20 hours of training.

ROG:
Not sure about pre driver cpc but certainly since the start of it the Polish have made it much harder to get a LGV than we have in the UK

This could be why many Polish are over here to get their LGV

  1. Poland had its own CPC (called Å›wiadectwo kwalifikacji) for long before it became mandatory in Europe. I can’t find the exact date of when it was introduced, but it is already present in the law from 1998. It was evolving over the years with some changes in early 2000’s and then in 2005 and now it is put in line with European standard. It’s name was also changing over the years. That, together with complicated series of tricky maneuvres required from the candidate before he even leaves the examination centre’s yard makes it that, I dare to say, it is much harder to obtain driving license in Poland than in UK. It is not only my opinion - when I was doing my C, I was practicing my maneuvres next to secure lorry park and I had a chat with a Scottish bus driver (parks of Hamilton) who arrived with some youth orchestra playing in my town. He was really impressed with what we had to do for our exam and he said that he is not sure if he would be able to do what I was doing with the truck with his bus even after all these years driving. I thought at this time that he is just polite and tries to encourage me, but when years ago I attempted to do my bus license in Scotland, I gained my own experience. And Yes, it is much easier here. (I never completed my course though, but pass rates are much higher in Uk than in Poland).

Yes I am not sure if they were brave or just didn’t give a zb, many had already lost their homes and families plus they were better trained than many of our RAF pilots.

Insubordinate or increasingly brave, they got some fantastic results

  1. There is also another reason why they were so brave. They hoped that if they will fight well for their Western Allies, their Western Allies will pay them back later when it will come time to free Poland. And you have remember, that unlike many RAF pilots, they had some real battle experience - from September campaign in Poland and then (in some cases) from France, that also helped them to have better result.

tachograph:
I can only speak from my own experience, I always believed that the east Europeans had a good work ethic until a couple of years ago when I worked at an agency that ran their own vehicles, many of the drivers were Polish and it wasn’t long before I realised most of them weren’t hard workers they were just arse wipes, there is a difference, when the boss said jump they asked how high, no questions asked.

Sorry but based on my own experience, which admittedly is pretty much limited to one company, I no longer buy into this “East Europeans have a great work ethic” theory.

  1. Of course. It would be stupid to assume “all Eastearn Europeans have great work ethic” just as it would be stupid to assume “all Britons are lazy”. Especially that now many of my countrymates just ride of the good opinion they gained in the early years of mass emigration. Yet from my experience Eastern Europeans often do have better work ethic.
32

orys:

Roymondo:
Apparently, Poland still has its equivalent of National Service. At the end of their two years’ military service, they are all issued with a C&E licence even if they have never driven an artic (or Wagon & Drag). Doesn’t seem right to me, but then again MMTM so it must be true…

  1. Poland’s national services was scrapped five years ago, as someone already wrote in this thread.

  2. They were never the situation, that “all were issued with C+E license”.

Orys, Roymundo is saying this toungue in cheek, that means he’s repeating the stuff he’s heard so it must be true, although really he thinks its not true. Some understanding is lost in translation.

orys:

tachograph:
I can only speak from my own experience, I always believed that the east Europeans had a good work ethic until a couple of years ago when I worked at an agency that ran their own vehicles, many of the drivers were Polish and it wasn’t long before I realised most of them weren’t hard workers they were just arse wipes, there is a difference, when the boss said jump they asked how high, no questions asked.

Sorry but based on my own experience, which admittedly is pretty much limited to one company, I no longer buy into this “East Europeans have a great work ethic” theory.

  1. Of course. It would be stupid to assume “all Eastearn Europeans have great work ethic” just as it would be stupid to assume “all Britons are lazy”. Especially that now many of my countrymates just ride of the good opinion they gained in the early years of mass emigration. Yet from my experience Eastern Europeans often do have better work ethic.

Orys you don’t need to defend every EU person who comes here. I think most of us can fathom out that if someone has bothered his arse to come a quarter way round the planet to work, then he probably actually wants to work.
The one thing i can’t imagine and have never seen is immigrants saying…"nah, cap me off at 8 hours boss, i don’t want anymore i just want to get back home "

33

Just my tuppence worth.The young Brits prefer a call centre job rather than steam cleaning poultry cages.The Polish near me now have decent cars and dress well.
By watching Jeremy Kyle and a mother who does not know who the father or fsthers are after many one night stands in one night while being drunk and the whole world owes them a free house and all that goes with it.
Some Brits are benefit claimers as a career path.Pop a kid out.No need to get a job.I knew someone that was a baby factory.
Free dentalcare.Free glasses and eye test.Discounts at gyms and leisure centres.Cheap furniture.Free prescriptions.The list goes on.

34

orys:

tachograph:
I can only speak from my own experience, I always believed that the east Europeans had a good work ethic until a couple of years ago when I worked at an agency that ran their own vehicles, many of the drivers were Polish and it wasn’t long before I realised most of them weren’t hard workers they were just arse wipes, there is a difference, when the boss said jump they asked how high, no questions asked.

Sorry but based on my own experience, which admittedly is pretty much limited to one company, I no longer buy into this “East Europeans have a great work ethic” theory.

  1. Of course. It would be stupid to assume “all Eastearn Europeans have great work ethic” just as it would be stupid to assume “all Britons are lazy”. Especially that now many of my countrymates just ride of the good opinion they gained in the early years of mass emigration. Yet from my experience Eastern Europeans often do have better work ethic.

Sensible post orys and one for the most part I agree with.

I don’t necessarily agree that East Europeans generally have a better work ethic than most Brits, but I guess it depends how we define “work ethic”.

Like I said I can only go on my own limited experience of working with East Europeans, and I found the East Europeans I worked with to be very subservient to the bosses, and regardless of what they were told to do they were less likely to stand up for themselves than most of the Brits, that’s not what I call having a “good work ethic”.

Obviously I wouldn’t judge an entire nationality by the couple of dozen people I worked with, but I can only go by what I see not the stories that I hear :wink:

35

Mike-C:
I think most of us can fathom out that if someone has bothered his arse to come a quarter way round the planet to work, then he probably actually wants to work.

I think you’ll find that most people who come here are hoping to find a better life style, I doubt many people move to another country in the hope of being able to work harder.

Mike-C:
The one thing i can’t imagine and have never seen is immigrants saying…"nah, cap me off at 8 hours boss, i don’t want anymore i just want to get back home "

I never saw East Europeans saying they wouldn’t work more than 8 hours either, but I did hear some of them moaning about having to do longer hours than they wanted to, but they weren’t talking to the people who could make it happen.

toby1234abc:
Just my tuppence worth.The young Brits prefer a call centre job rather than steam cleaning poultry cages.

The people who empty my bins are young and British, or they were the last time I spoke to them anyway.

toby1234abc:
By watching Jeremy Kyle and a mother who does not know who the father or fsthers are after many one night stands in one night while being drunk and the whole world owes them a free house and all that goes with it.
Some Brits are benefit claimers as a career path.Pop a kid out.No need to get a job.I knew someone that was a baby factory.
Free dentalcare.Free glasses and eye test.Discounts at gyms and leisure centres.Cheap furniture.Free prescriptions.The list goes on.

Come off it mate who takes any notice of what they see on the Jeremy Kyles show :grimacing:

I can’t speak from experience but I’ve no doubt that if you went to any East European country you would find that they have their share of idiots to, in fact that probably applies to any country where the people have a decent degree of freedom.

I do agree though that we have too many benefit scroungers in this country, but I can’t say what percentage are British, though given that most people in the UK are British it would be surprising if most benefit scroungers were not British :frowning:

36

If you got rid of benefits, you would probably solve your scrounger and immigrant problems in 1 fail swoop. I’m not saying that’s what I think should happen of course, just an observation.

37

JLS Driver SOS:
If you got rid of benefits, you would probably solve your scrounger and immigrant problems in 1 fail swoop. I’m not saying that’s what I think should happen of course, just an observation.

I would tend to agree. All this Working Womb Payment nonsense has to stop.

38

Mike-C:
Orys, Roymundo is saying this toungue in cheek, that means he’s repeating the stuff he’s heard so it must be true, although really he thinks its not true. Some understanding is lost in translation.

I know HE thinks it’s not true, but some may believe in that crap, look around at this forum, so I thought it will do no harm if I use that occasion to put some fact straight :slight_smile:

Mike-C:
Orys you don’t need to defend every EU person who comes here. I think most of us can fathom out that if someone has bothered his arse to come a quarter way round the planet to work, then he probably actually wants to work.

I don’t. Some of them are pretty annoying :slight_smile:

The one thing i can’t imagine and have never seen is immigrants saying…"nah, cap me off at 8 hours boss, i don’t want anymore i just want to get back home "

You might be surprised then that I am the one in my place who is standing up for driver’s rights. As far as I know I am the only one who refused to drive vehicle that was not road worthy (and did it twice) for example, which is not easy, when you hear constantly “other drivers drive it and they don’t complain…”

tachograph:
Sensible post orys and one for the most part I agree with.

I don’t necessarily agree that East Europeans generally have a better work ethic than most Brits, but I guess it depends how we define “work ethic”.

Like I said I can only go on my own limited experience of working with East Europeans, and I found the East Europeans I worked with to be very subservient to the bosses, and regardless of what they were told to do they were less likely to stand up for themselves than most of the Brits, that’s not what I call having a “good work ethic”.

See, it is a question of work ethic. In my company for example we are doing variety of jobs. I am on the position that all of these jobs have to be done and unless I am required to do something I am not happy with (as driving vehicles with faulty brakes, as in the example above, or fulfilling my planners dreams about coming back to Glasgow from Newcastle via Crawford (the one south from M25) and Peterhead, as they aksed me to do recently), I am doing what I am asked. Some other drivers are complaining: this driver won’t do handball, other won’t do multidrop, yet another won’t do a day’s work for a company we helping from time to time because he don’t likes it etc. etc. etc. I am taking what they give me, as long as it’s reasonable, as I think that job is a job and it has to be done. But this actually backfired at me, and now I am given all these crappy jobs while the lazy ones get some nice runs to Europe for example. I learned some of the British work ethic, if this is what you are thinking about, and I told that I am not doing certain jobs now as well… Result: I am sitting at home, wasting my time on trucknet while my collegues enjoy trips to Germany and Poland (you would think that I would be the first guy to be sent to Poland due to language skills for example, huh?). I am not bothered as I am about to change anyway, but I see your point of view. It is just in my opinion it is lowering standards to the lowest common denominator. I was trown all crap at me and I said enough. Now I won’t do crappy jobs as well, and the company will struggle to fullfill their customer requirements as they will have no drivers willing to do it. In Eastern European style, it would be done that everyone would do these jobs and they would be spread equally, so there would be no harm if every driver would have to do crappy shift once in few weeks…

So in certain way I understand your position, that you should “respect” yourself, and I agree with this to some extend, but then, on the other hand, it’s a question of where you put the line. I heard some drivers in my company who say they don’t change bulbs…

There is other thing I observed when it comes to that work ethic, that I would rather call “the approach to work”. My Polish and Czech friends feel as a part of the company they work for, for example in my place I realised recently that I am propably the only driver who refers to the company as “we”. My all collegues (I am the only non-Scottish person there) refer to the company as “them”. I observed that as well when I’ve been working for the building industry. I was delivering to the building sites all around Britain and it was very often handball. When there were Eastern Europeans on the site, they were dropping what they were doing for 5 minutes and helping us to unload the lorry. When there were British people working, they were saying “it’s not our jobs” and they were ignoring us, on in some cases standing over our heads and pushing us to work harder “as there is lorry waiting with their delivery”. This is a different way of thinking. British worker thinks “i am an electrician, I am going to that constrution site to fit that lighting today and this is my job and I don’t give ■■■■ about anything else”. Eastern European will often think “we are building this building together, today I help the other guys to unload their truck, tomorow they will help me when I will need somebody to give me a hand”.

In my private opinion, the “Eastern European” way of doing things is better, as long as you put the line right, and balance “respecting yourself” and “doing a job as you are asked to” fairly and from what I am told it used to be like that here as well…

39

I agree with most of what you’ve said orys, I’ve never had much time for the “one man one job” attitude myself, often to the dismay of my fellow workers :blush:
But that’s not what I’m talking about, as you say it’s where you draw the line that counts.

I’ll give you an example, I was talking to one of the young Polish blokes at this firm I referred to when he asked me if he could legally work more than 60 hours in the week, so I told him that you can’t legally work more than 60 hours in the week unless you’ve booked a lot of POA or breaks.
He told me that he’d been told to work the following day (Saturday) which would put him well over the 60 hours, so I told him that if he wasn’t happy about it he should tell the TM he can’t do it because of the regulations.
His response was “I can’t do that, they’ve told me I’ve got to do it”, he clearly didn’t want to work and knew that legally he could get out of it in the blink of an eye, but he just bowed down and did what he was told.

Some people may see that as a good work attitude, I’m afraid I don’t see it that way at-all.

That attitude was pretty common amongst the East European drivers on that firm, on other occasions I would see them checking trailers during their break and coupling to the trailers the second their break was over, like they were being timed with a stop watch.

I’m not suggesting that I’ve never seen British workers with the same attitude because I have, but the only time I’ve worked on a firm where I regularly worked with the same East Europeans I found their attitude to work to go way beyond “having a good attitude towards work”, many of them were being treated like door mats, they knew it and just accepted it :frowning:

It’s not surprising that there were more East European drivers on that firm than British drivers.

40

Well, what you say is certainly over the line, but I think we have to remember about two things:

  1. There are for sure a British drivers who go over the line as well, as you yourself pointed out, so it is not specifically Eastern European thing.
  2. Often British companies abuse their power over the Eastern European worker, saying “either you do it, or we’ll say good bye”. I had that myself and I once walked out mid-shift from one agency job as the people in the company seem to think that they still live in colonial times and I am their slave or something.

But many of these people don’t speak good English and they are aware of that their chances on the job market will be nowadays much worse than these of their British counterpart - the times that you can get a job without speaking a word of English are long gone. They won’t dare to quit if they are mistreated. Contrary to popular opinion as well it is in many cases not so easy to get even a jobseekers allowance for a Pole here. So unlike their British counterpart if they land out of the job, they have poor chances to get another and they won’t even have in many cases JSA to help them through their hard period. And you have to remember that people here are unaware about their rights and procedures here when it comes to Employment Tribunals etc. And even if they are OK with their English to get by, it is hard for them to find some legal information over the internet. So they go as they are asked, as it is better to loose everything.

  1. Many of them escaped Poland not for finanacial reason, but because of the way how the employee is treated in Poland. Therefore for them “slightly bendind the rules” is still a progress, if you compare that to that guy who was stopped recently by Polish VOSA and fell asleep behind the wheel while they were checking his papers. He was driving on two cards and he was on the road for nearly 40 hours with only few short stops… I am not saying that this is a rule, Polish transport went a long way since it was regular occurence, but these things are things you hear people talking about, so this poor Polish chap from your company thinks “Blimey, after all I still don’t have it as bad as this guy” and go for what he is asked to do.

I think you shoudl go ahead and rise that question that people in that company are pushed over the line. In my view such behaviour should not be accepted, and both drivers who agree to that and (even more so) compaany managment should be held responsible.