In a bit of a corner so signed on with another agency this morning - all the usual stuff about how good their work, pay, conditions etc are and how they can easily accommodate me fully with work if my needs must.
I listen intently, asked a few appropriate questions and said in a very polite but firm manner in no circumstances contact me if the assignment is less than £9.00 per hour, to which the guy agreed and the sign up interview concluded.
Fast forward two hours and he calls with work for tomorrow - all good so far then, location, start time etc but no mention of hourly rate. Alarm bells in my head were loudly ringing so asked the obvious question to be told ‘£8.00 per hour mate - thats the going rate blah blah blah’
Calmly, I reminded him of our conversation of just two hours previous and said ‘thanks but I won’t be getting out of bed at 04.30am for eight quid an hour’ as I initially had told him!
His reply - ‘Ok mate nine quid then’
Knock me down with a feather - ■■■■■■■■ scumbags trying it on - I was furious but elated at the same time if you know what I mean.
Oh well, better go set the alarm - got to be up early in the mornin!!!
If it were me and I wasn’t desperate I would have still said no. To me the fact he caved in means he was treating you as a plank. If that’s how they work forget it
I just left an agency after getting a full time job sorted. I was on £9.57 class 1 and I said I would work one more week for the agency. In that week they offered me £11.50 for class 2 work and I said no, they have since advertised the job for others at £8. So that shows they have room to move if they want.
they never do listen,i signed with ADR and said to them I am only looking for 6am or 7am starts,they agreed straight away so I signed on the dotted line wasted about an hour and a half doing all the forms and silly tests,a week later the phone goes and they asked can I start at 3am, I said no this went on for around 3 to 4 weeks until I referred them to what I said about start times and what they agreed to,in the end they said they cant use me unless I was prepared to flex up on start times,i basically told the them where to go,i have relented since then with another agency but would not touch ADR ever again
mrginge:
I just left an agency after getting a full time job sorted. I was on £9.57 class 1 and I said I would work one more week for the agency. In that week they offered me £11.50 for class 2 work and I said no, they have since advertised the job for others at £8. So that shows they have room to move if they want.
Of course they have. You don’t walk into a car showroom and expect to pay the screen price on a new motor do you? Similar applies in temporary work, and it’s a fact of life however distasteful some might find it.
Bear in mind that any agency will cover the job even at a reduced margin rather than lose it to a competitor; and if the competitor’s driver turns out to be good and they get their feet under the table then they’ve lost far more than that shift.
I’ve mentioned this in other posts but here we go again as it fits in here too
Guy in my work through agency, got told £8 p/h for class 2, he was in 3-4 times a week for a few months. He needed a wage slip, so asked for one. They gave him paper copies… Only paid him £7.50 p/h
Another bloke, different agency, was in doing nightshifts for longer than I’ve been there. The agency put him in on day shift for a week, then he saw his wages, he told them he would never do dayshift in there again!!! The agency said he was booked for day shift all next week, “NOT DOING IT!!!” He told them… “OK, OK, We will pay you the nightshift rate then!!!”
So we as drivers have the power to bring a rise in pay across the board. If we refused to work for agency’s for let’s say 5 days ( like a 5 day strike ) the industry would realise how powerful we could be … Trouble is we don’t all stick together
Is it possible that the thing that everyone hates about Agencies is in fact nothing more than “Market Forces” via a good haggle at work?
It’s not a proper job after all. Why should anyone expect decent T&Cs? When the work is down, you’ll get treated like crap. When the work is plentiful, you can ask for the moon - and probably get it.
The trick - is to recognise when you’re holding the upper hand, and act accordingly.
Market forces will always determine how much power the agy driver has.
Failing to recognise the signs which way the swingometer is going is down to complacency which will possibly result in the driver being stood down. Also being too rigid as to what start times your prepared to work will result in lack of work.
Being a little more flexible ie a 4hr window instead of 2hrs will get you more work without too greater inconvenience. A hard lesson I learned years ago, no work = no money
