One sure way to reduce the HGV driver shortage. Make the £3,000-£4,000 (or more) cost of training deductible against tax, write-offable over 5 years if using the licence. Simples, fair and would not need lower standards.
We as a profession should be up in arms at the lowering of standards. Striking if need be. Like any other group of workers would be. OUR reputations and qualifications are instantly downgraded by the reduction in standards. Every accident caused is a mark against us all in the eyes of the public.
We should be aiming to INCREASE standards, not lower them.
wakou:
One sure way to reduce the HGV driver shortage. Make the £3,000-£4,000 (or more) cost of training deductible against tax, write-offable over 5 years if using the licence. Simples, fair and would not need lower standards.
We as a profession should be up in arms at the lowering of standards. Striking if need be. Like any other group of workers would be. OUR reputations and qualifications are instantly downgraded by the reduction in standards. Every accident caused is a mark against us all in the eyes of the public.
We should be aiming to INCREASE standards, not lower them.
I was nodding in agreement till I got to the bit about striking.
Do you really think that there would be any better way to turn the current public support for us into direct antipathy than by going on strike?
At the moment, the man (or woman) in the street is very much on our side; as are the media when it suits them to be. The latter though is a fickle beast as we all know to our cost; and they would not hesitate to vilify us for being greedy and selfish if it meant that their lies sold more newspapers.
Be careful what you wish for!
Point taken. But when there is a threat to the status of say, train drivers, or a proposal to reduce the skills needed, the drivers, (and their union) just say NO!
The public, influenced by the Sun and the Mail, briefly mutter and cuss.
But the standing of train drivers, in the public eye, is not permanently reduced. And the high standards are maintained. Safety is not compromised. Wages go
up.
wakou:
Point taken. But when there is a threat to the status of say, train drivers, or a proposal to reduce the skills needed, the drivers, (and their union) just say NO!
The public, influenced by the Sun and the Mail, briefly mutter and cuss.
But the standing of train drivers, in the public eye, is not permanently reduced. And the high standards are maintained. Safety is not compromised. Wages go
up.
The union being one difference.
There is another. Don’t know if you’re aware of this, but before a train driver can even leave the station, he has to “sign for the route”; that means he can, almost literally, drive the train blindfold along it and know exactly where he is, what is coming up next in the way of signals, crossings, bridges, tunnels and any other hazard. Therefore there is no potential for the likes of “agency” or others to do the job in their stead.
It’s done for the best of reasons, safety. But it’s also why the train drivers have both their employers and the public by the short and curlies, because NOBODY else can do that job. It’s also one of the primary reasons why business is still loath to entrust its freight to rail.
Road transport does not enjoy that luxury, and never will.
But it SHOULD! Now, we have them (to use your metaphor) “by the short and curlies”. A once in a lifetime opportunity to INCREASE standards. Increase professionalism in the industry. INSIST that driver hours/fatique/rest are taken seriously. And that food/parking and basic sanitary facilities are available to all, at depots, RDC’s, MSA’s and on A-roads.
wakou:
But it SHOULD! Now, we have them (to use your metaphor) “by the short and curlies”. A once in a lifetime opportunity to INCREASE standards. Increase professionalism in the industry. INSIST that driver hours/fatique/rest are taken seriously. And that food/parking and basic sanitary facilities are available to all, at depots, RDC’s, MSA’s and on A-roads.
My point is that we do not have a united monopoly as the train drivers do.
And it’s not just unscrupulous hauliers who’d “blackleg” to get the work; some drivers are just as bad.
I totally agree that we should have all, that, by the way; what we do not have is the collective will and means to achieve it.
D’accord!
When FULL TIME rates - rise as sharply as Agency rates already have - then and only then - will we be able to say the “rise” is a one-way street, never to come back down again.
THIS - used to be called “Inflation”, and think of what effect it had in the early years of Thatcher’s government…
Whole industries - disappeared.
There was a spot on the daily news stating “which factories/plants had closed down this week, how many job losses, dole queues increased by whatever that job-loss figure happened to be, to the individual worker…”
It wasn’t until new start-ups in the LATE 80’s got some traction that any fleeting recovery started, only to be crushed like a bug by entering the Exchange Rate Mechanism (An EU toy) a totally unnecessary move that caused the losses of millions of homeowners chance to ever actually own their own home “Can’t now - you’ve been re-possessed, and will never qualify for another mortgage ever again”…
The public finally voted in Labour five years later - but the damge was already done.
Now think back to that recession-prone 1990’s decade - and ask yourself
“How come we look back and call the 90’s the good-old-days of agency trucking in particular?”
Anyone on here remember Tipper Driving, Agency for Safeways, and the “Big Easy” of general haulage?
What was considered the “arse” of the job back then even?
Supermarket Work, and other recession-proof jobs?
Boot is on the other foot now, by the looks of it.
I’ve had haulage managers asking for me to work for a dressed-up, but in the end crappy hourly rate…
£145 per shift - sounds good UNTIL you realize that it is for a shift likely to last 12-15 hours, rather than 8 to 10, with the 10 being legally bound into the Working Time Directive maximum for working nights, no opt-out…
Alas, if it isn’t in your contract - you wont be getting it (upsides)
If the contract doesn’t rule it out - you’ll be getting it in SPADES - (Downsides, like overally long length-of-shift, unpaid meal breaks/POA etc)
A good, well-defined full time contract - would work wonders to reduce the driver shortage.
Would I chuck a £20ph agency job for a full time contract?
Yes… I might wear a £2ph pay cut to 18ph with maximum length of shift after which overtime is payable, and a four day week…
NO - if I have no say over what shifts I’d be working (Any five from seven)
NO - if I can expect to be working shifts over 10 hours every damned day - and more than 4 of them…
NO - if my flat week’s pay - doesn’t pay my bills (I don’t want to have to moonlight when I’m on my holidays from a full time job - right?)
Sooner or later - firms will wise-up, and make the contracts more comfortable, “need of the operation” - be damned.
I’ve never done a Tramping job, but have done the occasional night out, which I’ll wear - if the next day after the night out is a shorter shift, and I’m off work for weekly rest following… I detest nights out if is at the start of my working week.
It doesn’t really cost a firm any money to have a full time army of drivers on 3-way rotates around the clock, 12 hour shifts, say…
06:00, 15:00, and 20:00 start times say… You DON’T rotate - unless you want to, in which case you need a set mate to rotate with as a “local agreement”. The job advertised - will be a fixed one of these pattern starts… Four days on, Four days off…
Produce that - and a firm might even be able to get away with £12ph pay rates for a while longer…
Whingeer, you’d still be finding some reason to sit at home refusing to work if the rates were £100/hr. 
wakou:
One sure way to reduce the HGV driver shortage. Make the £3,000-£4,000 (or more) cost of training deductible against tax, write-offable over 5 years if using the licence. Simples, fair and would not need lower standards.
Or maybe the haulage industry could train new drivers at its own expense and make the job sufficiently appealing that they would want to stay in it.
And then I woke up. 
DCPCFML:
Whingeer, you’d still be finding some reason to sit at home refusing to work if the rates were £100/hr.
If you want to go on believing your own lies - have it your own way.
I’m obviously invisible enough in the workplace now - that I can finally see the back of people like yourself conspiring to get rid of me the moment I try to nail down a lucrative job.
Sitting at home?
Not since April 14th last year… I might be being fussy about what work I do - but there isn’t a shortage of work right now, in case you hadn’t noticed. 
Notice that “refusal to do an any-five-from-seven” - doesn’t mean that makes me “Unemployed” - Geddit?
Oh how full timers on crappy contracts always seem to get so upset at being upstaged by the floating talent all the time…
Maybe I just need to keep quiet in the actual workplace about that - to keep the posse off my back eh?
Consider that already done - some time since. 
Winseer:
DCPCFML:
Whingeer, you’d still be finding some reason to sit at home refusing to work if the rates were £100/hr.If you want to go on believing your own lies - have it your own way.
I’m obviously invisible enough in the workplace now - that I can finally see the back of people like yourself conspiring to get rid of me the moment I try to nail down a lucrative job.
Sitting at home?
Not since April 14th last year… I might be being fussy about what work I do - but there isn’t a shortage of work right now, in case you hadn’t noticed.Notice that “refusal to do an any-five-from-seven” - doesn’t mean that makes me “Unemployed” - Geddit?
Oh how full timers on crappy contracts always seem to get so upset at being upstaged by the floating talent all the time…
Maybe I just need to keep quiet in the actual workplace about that - to keep the posse off my back eh?
Consider that already done - some time since.
It’s just a shame that you have to commute to Scotland for work every day, as you have been banned from every place within a 400 mile radius of Kent.