44 Tonne Ton:
Wot? Impartial like yourself…?
Indeed, you won’t find anyone more impartial on the subject than me, or would you like to try and suggest otherwise? 
what about the future 
can anyone predict the state of our industry in another 10 or 20 years.also what percentage of british jobs will be taken by migrants,and what are those displaced british workers supposed to do then,perhaps there`s a country they can all migrate to and make a better life for themselves.
commonrail:
what about the future
We’ve already tried that years ago and now the Canadians and Americans won’t let us in in large numbers anyway and even the convicts in Oz woun’t let us into our own jail. 
So we’re stuck here until whichever immigrant community can form a majority government based on their own home rules and chuck us all out as lazy,workshy,undesirables who don’t want to work so the jobs all have to be given to yet more immigrants to keep their majority in government.
Or if not they’ll probably just behead us all as infidels in the new Sharia state.
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.
Haulage represents a very poor return on your investment these days so presumably the company Harry worked for then at a higher rate with lower costs had a decent profit margin isn’t that good business.
Carryfast:
commonrail:
what about the future
We’ve already tried that years ago and now the Canadians and Americans won’t let us in in large numbers anyway and even the convicts in Oz woun’t let us into our own jail.
So we’re stuck here until whichever immigrant community can form a majority government based on their own home rules and chuck us all out as lazy,workshy,undesirables who don’t want to work so the jobs all have to be given to yet more immigrants to keep their majority in government.
Or if not they’ll probably just behead us all as infidels in the new Sharia state.
Bit extreme but I can see all our big city’s been pretty much ghettos with just immigrants and the poorest of the natives and the super rich having there own gated and guarded ghettos in the centre of the city’s
kr79:
Haulage represents a very poor return on your investment these days so presumably the company Harry worked for then at a higher rate with lower costs had a decent profit margin isn’t that good business.
Correction, haulage now represents an average return on your investment these days. General hauliers now return around 2.5-10% net margin over a financial year, pretty much the same as most other non-specialist industries. IT, manufacturing, engineering, general retail and telecoms all return similar margins.
The trouble is, that 20 or 30 years ago the margins were much higher, way beyond average return rates across industry (and I know, my family have been in haulage since the 1950’s!) and primarily driven by market forces (less competition) and the pre-commodity market in transport (where the pricing model was generally value based).
Nowadays haulage is not a specialst industry (certain sectors excepted), it is simply a service that you buy in (via a tendered procurement framework) as and when required through a variety of mechanisms just like the lady who cleans the office (contracted in from a facility management firm), the company cars, the call centre who handle your customer complaints or the warehousing that you store your goods in before dispatch.
Came back Sunday morn on train and there where 3 British lorries , two being from my company. The train was full , I admit that not all eastern bloc lorries .
Hope this is of some help.