dozy:
I maybe wrong but I think stobarts got done for this kind of thing , though it didn’t seem to deter some planners
Sort of. They got fined because drivers were required to phone in during weekly rests to find out what they were doing.
Not quite. They were not fined, it was a civil/employment matter and they (Stobart (Ireland) Driver Services Ltd - in other words, an employment agency) were found to be in breach of the Irish employment regulations regarding uninterrupted rest periods and other matters, and were ordered to pay compensation to the drivers affected.
But this was in Ireland, and last time I looked Irish legislation and court decisions don’t apply here in the UK…
Roymondo:
But this was in Ireland, and last time I looked Irish legislation and court decisions don’t apply here in the UK…
The Working Time Directive and Drivers Hours Regulations are EU wide regulations. As the UK signed into UK law all existing EU legislation as part of the Withdrawal Act then it’s likely that the same things Stobarts were found to be in breach of would be a breach here.
Roymondo:
But this was in Ireland, and last time I looked Irish legislation and court decisions don’t apply here in the UK…
The Working Time Directive and Drivers Hours Regulations are EU wide regulations. As the UK signed into UK law all existing EU legislation as part of the Withdrawal Act then it’s likely that the same things Stobarts were found to be in breach of would be a breach here.
Presumably you infer from this principle that all (former) EU member states have exactly the same legislation covering working time? Sorry to burst that particular bubble, but it simply isn’t so. In essence, and to keep it simple, the principle applied is that all individual member states must ensure that their legislation meets or exceeds the requirements of the relevant EU directive. As examples of the differences, the Irish Working Time legislation doesn’t apply the “six hour rule” in the same way as the UK legislation, and their definition of a “night worker” is very different to ours. As always, the Devil is in the detail, and their Labour Court (equivalent in many respects to our Employment Tribunals) ruled that requiring drivers to make phone calls during their Weekly Rest contravened their laws (Specifically the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997).
Forgetting the law, I would rather get an update before I got into work than when I was standing behind the transport desk.
When I used to work for Muller as a relief driver, I would frequently go home thinking I was doing mid Devon starting 4.30am for instance, only to find out when I got into work that the Bristol driver had called in sick the previous afternoon. His start time was 2am so I was starting the day on the back foot and having to run around like an idiot. The company refused to contact drivers on their time off, even though many drivers complained about this. Why? Because they must have had the odd whiner who insisted his daily rest had been interrupted, refusing to come into work, just for the sake of filtering calls on his mobile. That person or persons spoilt it for everyone else. I just think some people can’t bear to miss any call, like some sort of ocd thing. Just like some people can’t bear silence, or have to fill any quiet moment by talking rubbish.
I’ve got very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I absolutely hate having my daily rest interrupted by waking me up in the middle of my sleep time for inconsequential crap, especially when I’ve been running nights and some idiot in an office hasnt got the brains to realise that 2pm is NOT a good time to call a night trunker! On the other hand a good number of years ago I was overnighting in Leeds for an early collection, and was in the habit of turning the phone off at night time for just such reasons. I woke up and turned phone back on at about 5.30 to find 108 missed calls! During the night my mother had suffered a heart attack and everyone was trying to contact me, with no success. when I found out I ditched the trailer at the customers (was parked just outside) and ran straight to the hospital in burnley in the unit, but it was too late, I missed my chance to say goodbye as she died at about 4am.
These days I have 2 phones, one for work and one personal. Work one goes off after work. Only one person at work has my personal number, all other clowns at work are blocked. They know that I can be contacted in a genuine emergency but that trivial crap can wait.