Harry Monk:
I don’t recall British drivers staying away from home for several months at a time though, or working for £25 a day.
Yeah, they were doing Pakistan or Middle east in 5 days As for the pay - put it into context. Polish truckers used to earn more than University Proffessors
But it was much less common for British drivers to do third country movements than it is for eastern Europeans nowadays, e.g a Lithuanian taking a load from the UK to Spain.
But it is not because they did not wanted to, just the market was limited. I bet if there would be more jobs that way, it would be much more common.
fuse:
Lets all try to compete we will go and live in some warehouse in the truck,save on house rates ,water rates , heating ect ect, stick the young ones up the chimnys to earn a bit extra…why take wages just accept food vouchers…be funny this but thats what it comes down to.
Harry Monk:
Largely because of the difference in wages for both drivers and office staff, although operating centre costs will also be lower. And I don’t blame the drivers for doing it, blame the game and not the players is my thought on that one.
Come on Harry, we both know that the costs of an operating centre and office staff are a tiny miniscule fraction of the operating cost of a haulage operation, dwarfed by pretty much every other cost with the possible exception of pens and pencils!
Your 1994 price of £3500 is about £5600 in todays money, or more than twice the price that is charged today in real terms. This also doesn’t take into account the disparate rise in the cost of fuel compared to average inflation over the last 17 or 18 years, which would make the hauliers of 17 years ago look even more like con-artists if I could be bothered working it out.
So I ask again, for the third time, how can the rates of 17 years ago be justified given all the facts we know of costs then and now?
Harry Monk:
I don’t recall British drivers staying away from home for several months at a time though, or working for £25 a day.
Yeah, they were doing Pakistan or Middle east in 5 days As for the pay - put it into context. Polish truckers used to earn more than University Proffessors
But it was much less common for British drivers to do third country movements than it is for eastern Europeans nowadays, e.g a Lithuanian taking a load from the UK to Spain.
Harry, save your breath (or your typing ) orys and gogan (and plenty more here on trucknet) can’t see the way that the flipflops have carved up the job for the working man and you won’t convince them otherwise, try asking your bank manager if you can pay half the mortgage or ask the shop manager at tesco or asda if you can pay for only half the shopping simply because some romanian will work for half your wages
Three main things that are affecting the demise of the recovery industry:
1: Clubs screwing the opps to the floor on price.
2: Cowboys in overloaded 3.5 ton beavertails working for £15-20 a job.
3: RBS/GF new business strategy will mean other clubs will follow suit, and the industry will self distruct. Take note of this prediction, 50 established recovery opps will close their doors within the next 5 years.
Of those, none are related to the influx of immigrants.
Bit of trivia, Acromas Holdings is the owners of the AA. They also own SAGA and BSM, and have just announced a £259m loss.
Green Flag is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, well we know where they stand.
RAC is owned by Aviva, who made £47bn in 2010.
Mondial assistance is owned by Allianz.
Gogan:
So I ask again, for the third time, how can the rates of 17 years ago be justified given all the facts we know of costs then and now?
Because companies paid higher wages than eastern Europeans earn, and made a reasonable profit, as companies are supposed to do. This Wiki page will help you to understand it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage
Essentially, “driver wages” are, after diesel, the greatest expense in operating a truck.
welshboyinspain:
Harry, save your breath (or your typing ) orys and gogan (and plenty more here on trucknet) can’t see the way that the flipflops have carved up the job for the working man and you won’t convince them otherwise, try asking your bank manager if you can pay half the mortgage or ask the shop manager at tesco or asda if you can pay for only half the shopping simply because some romanian will work for half your wages
But Gogan here asked very good question, why you suggest Harry should keep avoiding answering it?
welshboyinspain:
Harry, save your breath (or your typing ) orys and gogan (and plenty more here on trucknet) can’t see the way that the flipflops have carved up the job for the working man and you won’t convince them otherwise, try asking your bank manager if you can pay half the mortgage or ask the shop manager at tesco or asda if you can pay for only half the shopping simply because some romanian will work for half your wages
But Gogan here asked very good question, why you suggest Harry should keep avoiding answering it?
he has answered it, you originally wanted to know about people critcising the eastern europeans in posts, well thats because most people who lose their jobs as a direct consequence of east european driver influx have seen the wages halved and it is rather irritating to say the least.
I did see a post recently about poles going on strike because they are being undercut by romanians and bulgarians, as the saying goes “what goes around comes around” thats life in the modern europe and we have to put up with it, besides how boring would this site be if there was no moaning? the british are, after all, experts in it
Gogan:
So I ask again, for the third time, how can the rates of 17 years ago be justified given all the facts we know of costs then and now?
Because companies paid higher wages than eastern Europeans earn, and made a reasonable profit, as companies are supposed to do. This Wiki page will help you to understand it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage
Essentially, “driver wages” are, after diesel, the greatest expense in operating a truck.
I don’t need a Wikipedia artice Harry, I’ve forgotten more about cross-market economics and trade than you will ever know, I’ll leave you to figure out how.
Drivers wages are the single biggest cost after diesel, but they still represent a small portion of the overall cost, so your justification is lacking substance.
It cost 65 pence a mile to run a truck in 1994 (this from old accounts from our haulage business), compared to around £1.12 today, so your justifications are all ■■■■■■■■.
The only reason for the rates in 1994 was pure profiteering, supply and demand meant that companies could charge a premium price and the market had no choice but to pay it. But like all such enterprises, the market soon reacted and supply and demand reached its natural saturation and the rates reflected that.
Gogan:
So I ask again, for the third time, how can the rates of 17 years ago be justified given all the facts we know of costs then and now?
Because companies paid higher wages than eastern Europeans earn, and made a reasonable profit, as companies are supposed to do. This Wiki page will help you to understand it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage
Essentially, “driver wages” are, after diesel, the greatest expense in operating a truck.
I don’t need a Wikipedia artice Harry, I’ve forgotten more about cross-market economics and trade than you will ever know, I’ll leave you to figure out how.
Drivers wages are the single biggest cost after diesel, but they still represent a small portion of the overall cost, so your justification is lacking substance.
It cost 65 pence a mile to run a truck in 1994 (this from old accounts from our haulage business), compared to around £1.12 today, so your justifications are all ■■■■■■■■.
The only reason for the rates in 1994 was pure profiteering, supply and demand meant that companies could charge a premium price and the market had no choice but to pay it. But like all such enterprises, the market soon reacted and supply and demand reached its natural saturation and the rates reflected that.
a question from a thick trucker not a top intelligent businessman like yourself,
shouldn’t all work be profiteering? otherwise it would be loss making and that wouldn’t get you very far
Coffeeholic:
Eastern Europeans, and other nationalities, can buy a recovery truck and do jobs for £10 - £15 a time. That’s the situation round this area.
So can do anyone else. This is not the situation that they do it with Eastern European trucks, using cheap fuel and paying Romanian driver pennies which are still a lot for him back home and this is often raised at this forum as a main factors why the Easter Europeans can allow themselves to cut the prices. If you do business from here, you have exactly the same costs as the locals.
welshboyinspain:
a question from a thick trucker not a top intelligent businessman like yourself,shouldn’t all work be profiteering? otherwise it would be loss making and that wouldn’t get you very far
No, there is a definitive difference between a profitable enterprise and one that uses profiteering to maximise earnings.
It mainly comes down to ethics, though there are other factors also. I’m sure Harry could dig up a wikipedia article for you.
I also resent your ‘top intelligent businessman’ remark, although it does show the level you want to drag the conversation down to, so I won’t engage you in a debate about the relative value and merit of knowing a little more about the world than the average thick trucker.
welshboyinspain:
Harry, save your breath (or your typing ) orys and gogan (and plenty more here on trucknet) can’t see the way that the flipflops have carved up the job for the working man and you won’t convince them otherwise, try asking your bank manager if you can pay half the mortgage or ask the shop manager at tesco or asda if you can pay for only half the shopping simply because some romanian will work for half your wages
But Gogan here asked very good question, why you suggest Harry should keep avoiding answering it?
I have answered it Orys. If you look above this your post (i.e. the posts made earlier), you will see this…
Harry Monk:
Gogan:
So I ask again, for the third time, how can the rates of 17 years ago be justified given all the facts we know of costs then and now?
Because companies paid higher wages than eastern Europeans earn, and made a reasonable profit, as companies are supposed to do. This Wiki page will help you to understand it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage
Essentially, “driver wages” are, after diesel, the greatest expense in operating a truck.
The first part is known as “a question” and the second part is known as “an answer”.
Do you not think it’s the case that return loads and freight brokers are a big cause of the rates hitting the floor,I mean years ago was the price not set on a one way trip and you made a profit on that and if you managed a back load then that was the icing.It wasn’t a case of ripping people off it was business.These days it’s a case of if you cant get a back load then the job is unviable and the fault of this must lie in people originally doing just to cover the diesel costs and unwittingly driving rates down and virtually putting every load at a back load rate.
With regards to the east europs hasn’t it gone downhill since the relaxation of cabotage,you continent boys can give us the diesel prices and the difference that makes with the foreign wagons working all week over here and the advantage that brings in the running costs.I would be intrested to know how much the average wage is for eastern lads.
welshboyinspain:
a question from a thick trucker not a top intelligent businessman like yourself,
shouldn’t all work be profiteering? otherwise it would be loss making and that wouldn’t get you very far
Answer for a simply foreign observer: you were overcharging your customers, causing a costs of living to rocket through the roof (after all, transport is a base for all economies). Because the haulage company had so comfortable situation, they stopped to worry about truck maintenance (“who cares, it goes away in two years anyway”), about saving money, about being effective and lot of other things which are important in business. In other words: no matter what you were doing, you were able to make profit of it because of the rates from the moon while at the same time enclosed market left your customers no choice.
Now the times are tougher and you suddenly realised that you cannot go on like that any more. But the skills needed to run the company reasobable are gone, and the attitude of workers has changed. Therefore since you are unable to cut your costs anywhere else, you cut the salaries, at the same time employing Eastern European workers who are not used to relative luxury you had and know how to work hard for their money…
But this is not enough, because your customers learned that they can have the same quality services for less, and took advantage for that the Eastern European companies were able to offer lower quotes when the EU was open.
Today you often pay your drivers less than many Eastern European companies do and you still struggle to compete with them… At the same time even though the difference in prices is no longer so big (for example the pound is now about 4.20 zÅ‚, while it used to be over 6 few years ago) the market is now dominated by the Eastern European companies.
I think with the costs gap being smaller and smaller you should now sit tight and try to recover the part of the market you lost. But you would need to work hard, as hard as you were working back in 70s and I am not sure that British people are ready for that…
Not really, he tries to show how wise he is and linked Wikipedia, but he did not really adressed the concerns raised by him.
you originally wanted to know about people critcising the eastern europeans in posts, well thats because most people who lose their jobs as a direct consequence of east european driver influx have seen the wages halved and it is rather irritating to say the least.
But there are many industries where there is no significant influx of Eastern European companies or drivers - like recovery (I never saw Eastern Eueopean recovery truck stealing British jobs) or, for example, English teaching and the salaries of these people also dropped rapidly. So it seems to me that the Eastern Europeans are just a whipping boys for everything (while they are responsible only for part of this).
I did see a post recently about poles going on strike because they are being undercut by romanians and bulgarians, as the saying goes “what goes around comes around” thats life in the modern europe and we have to put up with it, besides how boring would this site be if there was no moaning? the british are, after all, experts in it
Thats interesting, could you give me a link to this? I never heard about a Polish strike thing…
As for moaning, I am afraid that on this field you can also face a tough competition
ShropsBri:
I would be intrested to know how much the average wage is for eastern lads.
I understand a Bulgarian driver on international work earns around 25 euros a day. A quick Google suggests that a qualified nurse in Bulgaria earns 400 lev a month which is around £240.
It’s also worth making the point that eastern European firms which operate trucks permanently on third party work are breaking the law, since it is not possible to legally take a 45 hour rest period in a truck.
Harry Monk:
I have answered it Orys. If you look above this your post (i.e. the posts made earlier), you will see this…
It wasn’t visible at the time I started to write my post.
But when you clicked “Submit”, before your message was posted, you would have been advised that I had made that post. Therefore you would have had the option not to post it.
ShropsBri:
Do you not think it’s the case that return loads and freight brokers are a big cause of the rates hitting the floor,I mean years ago was the price not set on a one way trip and you made a profit on that and if you managed a back load then that was the icing.It wasn’t a case of ripping people off it was business.These days it’s a case of if you cant get a back load then the job is unviable and the fault of this must lie in people originally doing just to cover the diesel costs and unwittingly driving rates down and virtually putting every load at a back load rate.
That was all happening LONG before the eastern Europeans were on the scene. UK hauliers started that ball rolling, and the principle of supply and demand made it perpetual.
ShropsBri:
With regards to the east europs hasn’t it gone downhill since the relaxation of cabotage,you continent boys can give us the diesel prices and the difference that makes with the foreign wagons working all week over here and the advantage that brings in the running costs.I would be intrested to know how much the average wage is for eastern lads.
The fuel price differential is blown out of all proportion. The eastern europeans don’t have a secret stash of cheap diesel that only they have access to, they fill up from the same pumps as everyone else! There is nothing stopping UK hauliers from doing a quick euro job to brim the tanks with continental diesel before coming back and working all week, and indeed many hauliers do exactly that!
As for the pay - put it into context. Polish truckers used to earn more than University Proffessors
) orys and gogan (and plenty more here on trucknet) can’t see the way that the flipflops have carved up the job for the working man and you won’t convince them otherwise, try asking your bank manager if you can pay half the mortgage or ask the shop manager at tesco or asda if you can pay for only half the shopping simply because some romanian will work for half your wages
and the salaries of these people also dropped rapidly. So it seems to me that the Eastern Europeans are just a whipping boys for everything (while they are responsible only for part of this).