Interested to see how many owners on this site are Direct , i.e get their own work and have their own customer base for non transport companies and those that subby for a larger haulier .
If subbying for a larger haulier,(and this includes Container Companies) have they increased your pence per mile to cover the increase in fuel ?
i’ve done both since starting eighteen months ago and i’d take subbing work any day, as long as it at the right money! as for the fuel? yes i get paid a surcharge to cover the price rises.
been thinking about this, theres been alot said about fuel prices going up and up and how o/d’s can’t possibly be making any money which is true in a way.
the thing is this, any haulage firm no matter who they are or what the work is enters into a contract even if it’s only a year will have a clause in that contract to allow a surcharge to cover fuel price increases, if they didn’t the contract wouldn’t be worth a carrot because the cost of fuel is the one unpredictable cost and something no one can control and as we’ve seen can go up at the blink of an eye. so the big firms who use a lot of subbies such as the container firms will have undoubtaly been getting extra money to cover the fuel price but how many will have passed that on? when i looked at christmas at all sorts of work and spoke to a lot of firms, they all offered variouse enticements to get you on, fuel cards, weekly payments, gauranteed mileage etc etc but none mentioned a fuel surcharge and many were offering a rate that was set for twelve months! it might be a cynical way of looking at it, but if a firm uses a subbie and then gets a surcharge for a fuel increase but dosn’t pass that on to the subbie that surcharge then becomes profit for the firm! is this why all these firms continually advertise for subbies even though they strugle to find work for those they’ve already got? is it like ten green bottles, if one should suddenly fall, they stick another one in it’s place?
in the states and canada, wheres theres far more o/d’s than here, theres been cases recently where o/d’s have taken firms to court to force them to pass on those fuel surcharges which have been very sucessfull with the goverments stepping in and passing laws so that the big firms can’t legally withold that money from the subbies anymore.
is this the way it will go here i wonder or will it be a case of all those being turned over pulling out because they can’t make it pay and forcing the rates up?
Both.
2 trucks on Contract, 1 out there on it’s own, and no, no rate rise.
Well, I know for a fact that out of all the firms I subbed for , only ONE ever gave an increase when the fuel rose and that was Derijke out of Hull. All the others didnt , only 2 ever gave me a contract Nedexco and Derijke which stated rates terms with regard to fuel. Infact Nedexco dropped their rate as they stated that fuel in Holland cost less then in UK and they wanted to pass this cost benefit onto their customers Aas they exported to the UK!! Needless to say I pulled off!
No container firm that I have worked for has given rate increase cos of the fuel rises and the Irish , well forget them . I tell you this now, at 56 pence per Km for McBurney Refrigeration at todays prices, you are paying thjem to do their work. I doubt very much if their rates have gone up because it didnt happen before they took over and they refused when they did. and if they have they wouldnt have increased much.
I guess all the larger companies who do sub work out will be getting fat of the cream as they would have increased their prices to their customers and not passing it on.
Unfortunately in this game One hauliers success can be another hauliers failure.
56 pence per km 
you have got to be joking
wylie:
56 pence per km
you have got to be joking
ah, but at 110kph for 19 hours per day that’s over a grand a day 
jj72:
ah, but at 110kph for 19 hours per day that’s over a grand a day
many a true word spoken in jest.
Direct and sub contract, trying to piece it all together and stay afloat