What is the union big mouths postion on non english speaking drivers,re H&S,not heard much from them,maybe it would upset the gravy train.
froggy:
What is the union big mouths postion on non english speaking drivers,re H&S,
I don’t know about that but I hope it doesn’t catch on over here as I might live and work here but mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut!! 
Froggy.it is a subject that they are afraid to tackle head on as some
one will shout out loud that magic word Racisim or its like. in germany
the union in the new parts of germany aretakeing on the owners of the
abbatoirs as in one they have sacked the 60 man german working force
who were earning about6-7 pounds a hour for 10hours work and taken on cheaper laubour fron the new EU lands who work for half the wages
and do more hours about 12-14 hours aday, the good point is that the union is fighting that all workers should recive the correct wages as was
payed before the new influx of cheap labour was free to come and work in the EU: we will just have to wait and see what sort of result the union can achieve, If the people who come looking fore work are qualified and
competent in the job and can converse in the languge where they are working then yes it is okay .but if a greedy profit hungery swine only
wishes to have a cheap slave labour then NO it should not be allowed
to pass,As stated before many big firms in germany are telling there
transport partners that the drivers of a German firm must be able to
speak,read.write. german or they will not get loaded,
Pete, what’s that Basic German Language Course that everyone (non-natives) have to hold to be employed in Germany??
Quite a few of my colegues have done it at some of the local colleges lately; €90 all in for 6 weeks part time.
sorry ,but when i started to work as a civvy here in germany i was not
sent on a course or told about them ,and as for work if you could not
converse,read.write ,then a lot of the firms said nein danke, it may be that you can now take a course at the VHS – training college ,
BUT this may not be quite good enough standard for good communication when driveing hazerdous goods --ADR or even when
loading normal goods as it seems at present the problem with HSE is
looked at quite stricter in many firms as when accidents happen and it
is proven that the driver did not have it correctly explained then they will be done and SO they say when a german transport firm comes to load then the driver will not get loaded if he does not speak adequate
german. which I find is correct ,if the driver comes from a transport firm
from outside germany then yes it is correct that this person is treated
differently than the driver from a german firm…
What can the Unions do? All they can do is make sure companies pay above the minimum wage and that workers are registered to work in the UK, which even those from the new EU countries have to do to work here legally. They could also check the the drivers are suitabily qualified. There is so much anti union legislation that they have to be very careful about any action they take.
How many drivers complaining about Foreign drivers, are in a Union and how many of them have bothered to contact their Union? If you don’t join and don’t tell of you r problems, then you can’t complain when they don’t help you.
marcustandy:
Pete, what’s that Basic German Language Course that everyone (non-natives) have to hold to be employed in Germany??Quite a few of my colegues have done it at some of the local colleges lately; €90 all in for 6 weeks part time.
Just out of interest what is the lowest level of German required to work in Germany?
mrpj:
marcustandy:
Pete, what’s that Basic German Language Course that everyone (non-natives) have to hold to be employed in Germany??Quite a few of my colegues have done it at some of the local colleges lately; €90 all in for 6 weeks part time.
Just out of interest what is the lowest level of German required to work in Germany?
I’m going to check it’s correct title and get back to you. I know a few Brits who have settled here recently have done this course. They said the class was totally made up from ‘foreigners’ i.e. Brits, Turks, Polish, etc. No language qualification = no job.
TO get the permit to reside in germany when i first applied for it the
guy just spoke to me in a mixture of german and english, the problem is that with the large amount of people comeing out of russia, the goverments money chest was depleted of a large amount of the money
which was ear marked for such projects,yes the people in question do
take part in some sort of course but not all of them can use the knowledge correctly it is a fact ,we have this problem where I work
as the amount of people who do not speak good enough german is
large,and this is the trend in quite a few firms .Depending on what your job entails,then this will dictate how good your knowledge and use of
the language needs to be, ALL i can say here is that some firms from
the rhur pott say sorry no position available when the persons communication skills are not good enough, for the following reasons.
- The firms works with dangerous goods
2.the firms of the goods that are carried have stated the drivers must be
up to a certain standard in the communication skills. - The person employed must have a ADR/HAZ licence which means
takeing a test in the german language.
Then again there are firms where the requirement of good german is
not so high on the list, it all depends on what you do and what the
employer wishes. and can the employer make a profit with the use of
the said person.
muckles:
What can the Unions do? All they can do is make sure companies pay above the minimum wage and that workers are registered to work in the UK, which even those from the new EU countries have to do to work here legally. They could also check the the drivers are suitabily qualified. There is so much anti union legislation that they have to be very careful about any action they take.How many drivers complaining about Foreign drivers, are in a Union and how many of them have bothered to contact their Union? If you don’t join and don’t tell of you r problems, then you can’t complain when they don’t help you.
well said muckles.
"well said…"point being H&S if a driver can not read or speak english then that driver is a H&S danger,RDC,s which are used to oversea,s drivers can cope with a few signs,do a drop for tesco,s or woolies in the town centre etc or a pick in some out of the way place is a danger not only to other drivers but the public at large.
If you look on the TGWU website you will see what the unions are doing! They are advertising for members from Eastern Europe, because they need members to boost the wages paid to the union leaders.
The unions in Poland do more for their members, where else could a shipyard worker end up as President?
froggy:
"well said…"point being H&S if a driver can not read or speak english then that driver is a H&S danger,RDC,s which are used to oversea,s drivers can cope with a few signs,do a drop for tesco,s or woolies in the town centre etc or a pick in some out of the way place is a danger not only to other drivers but the public at large.
Many of the people at my depot don’t have English as their first language and when the T&GWU safety rep raised the issue, because of the poor loading (below the companies own training manual) onto sealed trailers, was told that every one had a basic understanding of English. Since then there have been no noticable improvement in spite of the local Environmental health officer being advised and visiting the site, near miss reports lodged, another accident injuring a driver, stock frequently damaged and photographic evidence of the shortcommings. The financial rewards for productivity gains by taking shport cuts are better than the desire to supervise and enforce the recognised safe system of work.
I was the safety rep, I was hurt and my union is making the claim from the company using the companies own H&S committee minutes at which these issues have been raised when the depot manager (top man on site) was chairman. The grievance that was lodged still has not been settled some 5 WEEKS after it was first raised, supposed to be sorted within days. I’m going to use all the local site procedures and then I will go off site if not satisfied, all with the support of my local full time officer.
Muckles:
How many drivers complaining about Foreign drivers, are in a Union and how many of them have bothered to contact their Union? If you don’t join and don’t tell of you r problems, then you can’t complain when they don’t help you.
Thats so true Muckles. Unions are not a magic wand to be used when you need them and forgotten when you don’t. They can highlight problems to the people with the responsibility to deal with them but struggle when those people don’t give a [zb] as they will not suffer injury.
The problem for me is a moral one rather than anything to do with H&S. For me, the fact that a Pole, Slovak or Latvian can speak English, does not make it ok for any number of them to enter this country, or any other and displace the existing population of their livelyhoods because they work for a cheaper rate. I’m 20 years old and have wanted nothing else than to be a truck driver, an international truckdriver at that for the last 15 years. Yet, in the past 5 years I’ve had nothing but worry and dread for the future when company after company lost its share of international work for whatever reason and more recently when our own drivers themselves, in our own country are actually under threat of having their jobs HERE being taken off them by those who work for less from E.Europe. What sort of government and country would allow this to take place and do nothing about it? What future does a person like me and all who follow have here when our jobs, the very thing we need to exist in a modern society is so unstable that we dont know from week to week where we are and how we stand. Unfortunetly I do not have the luxury of being able to swan off to another country better off than my own and earn a living there, nor do millions of other British youngsters who will have to grow up, like me, not having a secure job due to unregulated movement of cheap workers into their labourmarket. Yes, I know we have never had total job security and I’m not pretending we ever have, but another thing we in Britain have also never had, is an almost endless number of people from countries such as Poland with a population of 40 million who if they wanted, could without restriction all enter Britain and at the moment, theres not a thing any of us could do about it legally.