having spent 30yrs as an engineer i agree with the above, however as officialdom piles more and more rules ,regulations, and certification onto the job its status has got to rise. the days when the village numpty who could hardly read and write could move from his tractor to a hgv are fast disappearing.
As my old boss used to say…drivers..10 a penny …was true back then, and still true today…cos im afraid that its everyone for himself, and thats always been the case, what we have always needed in this industry to get anywhere, is to be united, to be unionised, not the scums that purport to be unions, but a new body, for only drivers, and run by only drivers..hands up who will form one, hands up who will join one, and you will get very little support. never mind the drivers strikes years ago, never mind the strikes before they even thought of them,i was on so many picket lines, yes even at Wapping before Maggie took away the rights of the working class to fight for their rights, if you want anything in this life, you gotta fight for it, but i am afraid to say, the workers of this country have no backbone, and you will always be treated as ■■■■, as long as you allow it. I have always been a fighter, and when some C*** tells me i gotta unload ( like at Lidl ) i tell them get stuffed, do it yourself, or ill take it back, when some other C*** tells me to get into my fridge, at Minus 25, and pump pallets across the ice, i ask them politely, do you want this stuff or not, my job as a driver is to drive, years ago the job description was told to you, and advertised as Driver loader wanted or at the interview you was told the job requires you to load/unload. Fair enough if thats what you want to do, but in this day and age, and with millions of unemployed, and profit margins getting smaller, the onus is being put onto the driver, and if you dont fight, the future will be drivers will unload/load at every port of call…FIGHT BACK.
Last year, Sainsburys asked our company if we would work Christmas day, so its in their thoughts,
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!
If your business isn’t making the money to pay it’s staff what they deserve…you aren’t running it properly. Well paid and valued staff are (usually) loyal staff in my experience.
Supply and demand is fine, but at what point does it become pointless to run the business at all? If you can’t make a profit after paying staff and you can’t see any way past it, you’re in the wrong business and need to get out and fast before you start making a loss.
truckyboy:
As my old boss used to say…drivers..10 a penny …was true back then, and still true today…cos im afraid that its everyone for himself, and thats always been the case, what we have always needed in this industry to get anywhere, is to be united, to be unionised, not the scums that purport to be unions, but a new body, for only drivers, and run by only drivers..hands up who will form one, hands up who will join one, and you will get very little support. never mind the drivers strikes years ago, never mind the strikes before they even thought of them,i was on so many picket lines, yes even at Wapping before Maggie took away the rights of the working class to fight for their rights, if you want anything in this life, you gotta fight for it, but i am afraid to say, the workers of this country have no backbone, and you will always be treated as [zb], as long as you allow it. I have always been a fighter, and when some C*** tells me i gotta unload ( like at Lidl ) i tell them get stuffed, do it yourself, or ill take it back, when some other C*** tells me to get into my fridge, at Minus 25, and pump pallets across the ice, i ask them politely, do you want this stuff or not, my job as a driver is to drive, years ago the job description was told to you, and advertised as Driver loader wanted or at the interview you was told the job requires you to load/unload. Fair enough if thats what you want to do, but in this day and age, and with millions of unemployed, and profit margins getting smaller, the onus is being put onto the driver, and if you dont fight, the future will be drivers will unload/load at every port of call…FIGHT BACK.
Last year, Sainsburys asked our company if we would work Christmas day, so its in their thoughts,
truckyboy:
I have always been a fighter, and when some C*** tells me i gotta unload ( like at Lidl ) i tell them get stuffed, do it yourself, or i`ll take it back, when some other C*** tells me to get into my fridge, at Minus 25, and pump pallets across the ice, i ask them politely, do you want this stuff or not, my job as a driver is to drive,
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.
Truckulent:
If your business isn’t making the money to pay it’s staff what they deserve…you aren’t running it properly. Well paid and valued staff are (usually) loyal staff in my experience.
Many truck drivers on crap wages are getting paid what they deserve. Don’t know drivers hours rules, can’t drive economically, bend motors, damage loads, look like tramps, can’t reverse, no common sense and always on the phone to the office asking for help for stuff they should be able to sort out themselves.
One thing being an agency driver going to lots of different companies showed me is there’s far more lorry drivers worth minimum wage than worth decent money.
i’ve been offered jobs, but some have been agencies that pose as haulage companies. i don’t do agency work.
i’ve been offered a start at some places and been offered hourly pay. i don’t do hourly pay, they gave me what i wanted, a day rate. the payslip was worked out hourly for their books, but i got the same money for working 6 hours or 15 hours.
Some of you are really living on Cloud Cuckoo land is you think that truck driving is a skilled job. Any job that take you a couple of weeks to qualify for is no way skilled.
I’ve worked in haulage for many years and meet many drivers who can’t or won’t understand basic instructions, some can’t even speak basic English and can barely read, they damage trucks and property on a regular basis and think nothing of it. And none of these drivers came from Eastern Europe.
muckles:
Some of you are really living on Cloud Cuckoo land is you think that truck driving is a skilled job. Any job that take you a couple of weeks to qualify for is no way skilled.
I’ve worked in haulage for many years and meet many drivers who can’t or won’t understand basic instructions, some can’t even speak basic English and can barely read, they damage trucks and property on a regular basis and think nothing of it. And none of these drivers came from Eastern Europe.
that’s why it is a skilled job for some, and not for others.
i class my driving as a skilled job. but that’s because i drive to a high standard.
but there are a heck of a lot of dumb [zb] hgv licence holders out there.
Is it just me, or what, I can’t believe that some people on here think we’re only worth 7pound an hr, no overtime, or time and a half, for Saturdays etc, We could bring this country to its knees in less than 3 days if we wished, and you still think we’re worth 7 quid… If you think we’re not skilled in any way, try moving a Stator out of a powerstation generator, on a low loader, built up on sleepers, top heavy centre of gravity, if you loose it, millions of pounds ins claim… FFs
perkibre:
Is it just me, or what, I can’t believe that some people on here think we’re only worth 7pound an hr, no overtime, or time and a half, for Saturdays etc, We could bring this country to its knees in less than 3 days if we wished, and you still think we’re worth 7 quid… If you think we’re not skilled in any way, try moving a Stator out of a powerstation generator, on a low loader, built up on sleepers, top heavy centre of gravity, if you loose it, millions of pounds ins claim… FFs
But we don’t bring the Country to a halt do we? Workers in Industries that did used to bring the Country to a halt got their pay rises and then those in power took their revenge.
And even when certain sectors of the haulage industry threaten to take action they get slagged off by others in the haulage industry because they don’t think they should do it when they already get paid so much. Which really proves how thick some driver are that they can’t work out that another sector has got decent wages because they’ve stuck together.
As for hauling a stator out of a power station, that’s specialist work and if it’s done by a reputable firm they won’t put some numpty in the cab and the drivers that do it are probably those with a bit more about them so they seek out something more challenging than your average general haulage job.
But it doesn’t get round the fact you can get behind the wheel of a 44t truck with only a few weeks training.
perkibre:
Is it just me, or what, I can’t believe that some people on here think we’re only worth 7pound an hr, no overtime, or time and a half, for Saturdays etc, We could bring this country to its knees in less than 3 days if we wished, and you still think we’re worth 7 quid… If you think we’re not skilled in any way, try moving a Stator out of a powerstation generator, on a low loader, built up on sleepers, top heavy centre of gravity, if you loose it, millions of pounds ins claim… FFs
Fair comment, but what’s a driver that moves a stator out of a power station generator on a low loader getting paid these days?
perkibre:
Is it just me, or what, I can’t believe that some people on here think we’re only worth 7pound an hr, no overtime, or time and a half, for Saturdays etc, We could bring this country to its knees in less than 3 days if we wished, and you still think we’re worth 7 quid… If you think we’re not skilled in any way, try moving a Stator out of a powerstation generator, on a low loader, built up on sleepers, top heavy centre of gravity, if you loose it, millions of pounds ins claim… FFs
Fair comment, but what’s a driver that moves a stator out of a power station generator on a low loader getting paid these days?
I bet it ain’t £7ph !
I would imagine that the foreign driver moving the stator out of the foreign owned power station operating on British soil would be getting paid in Euros anyway, so it’s a moot point.
the maoster:
I would imagine that the foreign driver moving the stator out of the foreign owned power station operating on British soil would be getting paid in Euros anyway, so it’s a moot point.
Ironic isn’t it?
Thatcher broke up a nationalised power generating industry & all the knuckledraggers slagged off the few who tried to stop her.
SSSsshhh! Don’t tell Sid
Now it’s back as a nationalised industry, only this time the French own it.
As long as what you get for 6-15 hours is 15 hours pay, it’s OK I guess.
When insurers no longer let themselves be fiddled on the liability claiming side (ie refuse to insure cheaply those with dodgy licences) we’ll get some proper supply and demand legit market forces control over our pay again.
