The people who run this industry are constantly trying to dumb us down as drivers, yet the same people are always complaining that they can’t get drivers without addressing the reason why they can’t get drivers. Personally I think we all have to start saying no to things. Dont like the hourly rate? Don’t work there. Don’t want to be self employed? Don’t do it. Refuse to go on umbrella schemes, if you like being self self employed set your own pay rates and make sure your going to have a comfortable life doing it. We work under tight regulation on everything we do but they won’t regulate what we get paid and the end result is a job that is simply not worth forking out for the training.
Think about it. The cost of a class 1 licence- about three grand all in and it can take up to 6 months to qualify for a job that’s going to pay you about £9 PH. Cost of a fork lift licence bout £400 you can do it in 3 days and you will earn about £1 an hour less than a class 1 driver without all the regulation on when you can work and a lot less hassle. I might even consider becoming a security guard as they are better looked after than us drivers without whom the country cannot function.
Its not a case of saying no as that doesnt get you anywhere, you need to keep changing firms until your happy.
Its all well and good demanding a higher hourly rate but companies dont have this never ending pot of money, it has to be earnt, so when your stringing the job out to get an extra 30mins at the end of the day, in the long term its probably actually losing you money.
There is no word in Polish for No.
Offer 'em £3.50 an hour & they rip it out of the Bosses hand & he loves it, until Mr Polish (Generic term for Immigrants) hits a bridge 'cos he can’t read English or jack knifes his brand new Scania.
Upto 7.5 ton is Semi Skilled, over 7.5t is Skilled, I’m guessing most Skilled workers are earning in excess of £12 per hour, so why are we on such low rates.
martinviking:
There is no word in Polish for No.
Offer 'em £3.50 an hour & they rip it out of the Bosses hand & he loves it, until Mr Polish (Generic term for Immigrants) hits a bridge 'cos he can’t read English or jack knifes his brand new Scania.
Upto 7.5 ton is Semi Skilled, over 7.5t is Skilled, I’m guessing most Skilled workers are earning in excess of £12 per hour, so why are we on such low rates.
Are we skilled? you have only got to read other posts on here some cannot back there truck some cannot use the toilet some cannot even get a wash then look how they get stuck under bridges or crash on the motorway not much skill there. Maybe the £3.50 is about right
I’m not xenophobic and I think fair play to them, live and let live, I’d do the same but artic drivers would be on a fair bit more money per hour if there were no Eastern Europeans in the country. Now the cost of living would be higher but at least the common man would feel he was getting a reasonable touch for his labour.
tachograph:
The problem with saying no in this industry is that there’s always 5 people behind you who will say yes please
So they can provide for their family instead going on the dole?
martinviking:
There is no word in Polish for No.
Offer 'em £3.50 an hour & they rip it out of the Bosses hand & he loves it, until Mr Polish (Generic term for Immigrants) hits a bridge 'cos he can’t read English or jack knifes his brand new Scania.
I reckon theres been plenty of english drivers who have hit bridges and jack knifed their brand new scania.
Saaamon:
Its not a case of saying no as that doesnt get you anywhere, you need to keep changing firms until your happy.
Its all well and good demanding a higher hourly rate but companies dont have this never ending pot of money, it has to be earnt, so when your stringing the job out to get an extra 30mins at the end of the day, in the long term its probably actually losing you money.
True to some extent.
But, taken this through to a logical conclusion, this means that when you are told you will have to work for minimum wage indefinitely, you should accept it because the firm hasn’t got a never ending pot of money…
Problem is, if drivers didn’t do so many hours, most would no longer be making enough to manage. At £7.00/hr you would earn £262.50 for a week’s work based on a 37.5 hour week (a more ‘normal’ working week) …less tax and NI. Could you pay the bills on the remainder?
The OP’s point is that if everyone stuck to it, things would change. But it won’t because there are too many drivers that have a rose tinted view of being a ‘trucker’ and are in love with their gaffer’s Topline, and don’t care about the wages being ■■■■■■
We are seen by the public as low paid, unskilled and dispensable, partly because many drivers behave as if we are and are happy to accept it with a shoulder shrugging kind of mentality.
No one says we should be earning 20 quid an hour all the time. But do you really believe that 7-8 quid an hour is a fair wage for the responsibility, regulation and skills required to drive a 44 tonne wagon?
Personally, I don’t think it’s enough. Over to you peeps…
Saaamon:
Its not a case of saying no as that doesnt get you anywhere, you need to keep changing firms until your happy.
Its all well and good demanding a higher hourly rate but companies dont have this never ending pot of money, it has to be earnt, so when your stringing the job out to get an extra 30mins at the end of the day, in the long term its probably actually losing you money.
agree with this.
may take a while to find the right firm, (took me 14 years) that suits you as an individual, especially if your new in the industry and trying to gain experience etc. sometimes in this game we are our own worst enemies, and that will never change, often it is a case of the minority, spoiling it for the majority.
like saaamon says, those who are clever at hiding, hanging the job out etc, often end up costing us all in the long run but they’ll never see it and are normally at the front of the moaning queue.
If people have a problem with the money well why dont they go out and get a better paying job… Theres no money in transport for drivers even the guys that love to tell us they take 700 a week, hardly loads of money is it.
I spent 25 years in the RN doing a highly skilled job for which I did a five year apprenticeship, so think I am at least partly qualified to comment on whether driving a lorry is a highly skilled job. I think it is only semi skilled, but I do think we have a huge amount of RESPONSIBILITY on our shoulders with 40T behind us, and as such it is a bit of a joke to be only paid minimum wage.
Saaamon:
If people have a problem with the money well why dont they go out and get a better paying job… Theres no money in transport for drivers even the guys that love to tell us they take 700 a week, hardly loads of money is it.
This statement amuses me. It’s certainly true to a point… but if drivers have this attitude, how can we ever expect the people that pay us to take us seriously.■■
What you seem to be saying is ‘driving pays ■■■■■■ so ■■■■ off if you don’t like it and leave the driving to us lads that are happy to work for poor money.’
Without drivers this country would be utterly ■■■■■■. No question about that.
I bet the powers that be are very relieved most drivers don’t have a clue about the sort of power they could wield, if only they weren’t too daft to see it…
martinviking:
There is no word in Polish for No.
Offer 'em £3.50 an hour & they rip it out of the Bosses hand & he loves it, until Mr Polish (Generic term for Immigrants) hits a bridge 'cos he can’t read English or jack knifes his brand new Scania.
Upto 7.5 ton is Semi Skilled, over 7.5t is Skilled, I’m guessing most Skilled workers are earning in excess of £12 per hour, so why are we on such low rates.
We should start by refusing to buy stuff off firms who prefer to employ eastern european labour eg bloody Tesco etc because even though these people come over here with the pretence of being a truck driver, they cause far more damage,accidents and abuse tacho law than you would ever get away with.
23 english drivers retired at one depot over the past 2 years and who has bloody replaced them? you bet a load of bloody idiots who work for some agency run by a Pole who pays somebody in transport a nice little back hander.Time to do something about this crap the bloody Rumanians are here from January.How many more do we “have to accept”.Would you see the French or Germans accepting this crap yet they are EU member states.Maybe their government gives a bugger about its own people unlike the grabbing greedy SOBs in this country.
Saaamon:
If people have a problem with the money well why dont they go out and get a better paying job… Theres no money in transport for drivers even the guys that love to tell us they take 700 a week, hardly loads of money is it.
This statement amuses me. It’s certainly true to a point… but if drivers have this attitude, how can we ever expect the people that pay us to take us seriously.■■
What you seem to be saying is ‘driving pays [zb], so [zb] off if you don’t like it and leave the driving to us lads that are happy to work for poor money.’
Without drivers this country would be utterly [zb]. No question about that.
I bet the powers that be are very relieved most drivers don’t have a clue about the sort of power they could wield, if only they weren’t too daft to see it…
Im from a business family, both sides have their own companies and the couple of people that dont work for the family. I helped run my parents commercial cleaning company for a few years before deciding to going driving for abit so i have a reasonable understanding about basic business and i can tell you now that staff are a pain in the arse. Companies dont need, want and cant pay their staff extra at the moment, the reason being is theres someone else that will do the job for less (supply and demand), they dont want to pay more because you mite be surprised to hear that actually giving someone a pay rise has a negative effect of productivity and even if they did want to their workers a pay rise they cant because the rates are so low it wouldnt leave enough profit left for the guy that owns the company!
but they’ll never see it and are normally at the front of the moaning queue.
