right, so as you know i am a limper driving an odd two -three-four days a week. Many have advised to try and knock on the doors to work direct (i am Ltd) for a company doing ad hoc work.
I am not in a rush however i have spoken with four companies.
- a small company offered 140 flat per weekend shift with start time around midnight. attended an interview and had not heard anything back, i suspect they have a nice pool of drivers to choose from.
- a big company, attended an interview, they pay their drivers £8-9 per hour and offered similar term to me
- a medium sized company pays £8-9 their employed drivers and suggests the same rates to me
- local company running very nice fleet, paying around £10. I presented my rates as £15 and never heard back
working for an agency i refuse shifts left than £12 weekday nights. i have later returned to two of these companies via an agency working at £12+
so these are the facts. my thoughts:
- Obviously no driver shortage, but this has been done to death, so lets ignore this one
- Some companies are taking advantage of people working for food, they know if they wait a bit they can get a driver for £8ph and even less
- There is nothing stopping agencies pushing the rates down in my area to the same £8-9 if people agree doing casual work for that amount but for some reason they are not doing it. Yet. Or i am unaware of their reasons.
- There is no chance the industry is going to sort itself out and the wages go up. No ■■■ chance, Wages will be sitting on the min wage for the nearest future
- i might be biased but i think the agencies are not the problem, the problem is oversupply of drivers and the general business thinking: if someone can do the job for less, i’ll take it and i don’t really care if the driver is goo or bad, if he is bad i’ll get another one as i pay £££ in insurance.
surely my experience is limited and i might be wrong in some of the points above
let’s see how quickly the topic gets derailed and we start talking about communism, relationship and politics 