Tarmaceater:
The managers of Wrings Transport Bristol are out driving their wagons as short of drivers
They’re paying £12/hr for the first 50hrs then £14.84 an hour after that in Avonmouth, no wonder they’re short of drivers. £12/hr is what I’ve seen Class 2 jobs starting to get in Hull.
35 hours a week in France and then overtime starts…and there is a shortage of drivers here too.
Conor:
Tarmaceater:
The managers of Wrings Transport Bristol are out driving their wagons as short of driversThey’re paying £12/hr for the first 50hrs then £14.84 an hour after that in Avonmouth, no wonder they’re short of drivers. £12/hr is what I’ve seen Class 2 jobs starting to get in Hull.
And you get to drive a craptros for that too…
I thought for a minute I was in North Korea.
What next the pointy shoe planners and fork lift drivers tramping all over the country.
Conor:
Tarmaceater:
The managers of Wrings Transport Bristol are out driving their wagons as short of driversThey’re paying £12/hr for the first 50hrs then £14.84 an hour after that in Avonmouth, no wonder they’re short of drivers. £12/hr is what I’ve seen Class 2 jobs starting to get in Hull.
They’ll never manage to get a full complement of drivers for £12 an hour. Maybe in Cornwall or east Kent but not in Avonmouth. They need to be paying £15 an hour as an absolute minimum and probably £20 when we get to the run-up to Christmas and even then I think they’d struggle.
Thes companies just don’t get it at all. 50 hrs before any prmium payment and then it’s less than time and a quarter. 40h then time and a half or it stays where it is.,Oh it’ll put up food prices, we can’t jhave that Yes, by a ha’penny a can of beans boo hoo. Don’t like it? don’t buy baked beans.
cav551:
Thes companies just don’t get it at all. 50 hrs before any prmium payment and then it’s less than time and a quarter. 40h then time and a half or it stays where it is.,Oh it’ll put up food prices, we can’t jhave that Yes, by a ha’penny a can of beans boo hoo. Don’t like it? don’t buy baked beans.
Yes, it baffles me when hauliers say they can’t pay their drivers more because their customers won’t pay higher rates for haulage.
Won’t pay? We won’t take it away! 
Simple maths really.
Were at extreme 1000,000 drivers Down.
Say a driver does 5 days, 2 loads a day.
Even with my poor arithmetic skills.
A million loads a week down.
That possible?
I actually think I’m right. 
Harry Monk:
Won’t pay? We won’t take it away!
… and then Mr Smith Haulage wade in and offer to shift the loads for even less, maybe even at a loss, to get a foot in the door for the coveted price of a contract being paid buttons to shift loads for a ‘blue chip’ customer.
The whole recruitment problem in transport is a problem self inflicted by the industry itself. However it never looks inwards, it’s always because the government won’t allow enough EE’s into the country or stump up money to train up drivers on their behalf. Then, when you do see the odd company who do actually train up drivers they are usually crying wolf 12 months later when the drivers bolt after being used & abused for a sub par wage & benefits package.
“Overtime after 50/55/60hrs”. Where the f did that come from? People in other industries laugh at us.
2am starts at day rate.
Planned 13-15hr shifts for shift workers who commute. 9hr reduced rests.
No serious regard for homelife offered up.
No balls to back their drivers up when treated like dirt at RDCs, rolling over & accepting 2-4hr turnarounds.
The issue with RDCs is a critical one because it’s the farcical downtime suffered in these places that make drivers hours so long & good profit so tricky make. Maybe the RHA could do something useful and lobby it’s members for a mutual agreement of demurrage being charged after 2hrs?
They will end up doing more of that quantitative easing in order to pay drivers more. Only the money will be worth less, so a better standard of living won’t be achieved.
Totally agree with you Harry.
Guys we got fkd over 18 years ago
Drivers are scum, being the general opinion of the great British public.
How many have you in the last 10 years had a chat with a mate.
Minimum wage went up again,
US the ones that keep the country breathing,
What’s a wage rise.
We don’t get wage rises we just jump jobs.
Trying to survive.
Working hours that’d kill a young donkey.
Not you’re average aged driver, but the hours do kill us, and impact on our lives.
OK rant over
simcor:
It’s all down to greed. Simple as.There is not drive shortage never has been and never will be.
It’s just the egg and chicken scenario over and over again.
Companies want less costs to transport the goods which in turn means less wages and worse terms and conditions.
Consumers want cheaper prices so therefore savings have to come from somewhere to make prices cheaper to the consumer. Usually the workforce wages and transport costs.
Shareholders and companies still need to make obscene amounts of profits and salaries and bonuses.
Funny when you read an article like “x supermarket/business has announced a pre/post tax fall in profits of £32m for the year, down from £323 million to a measly £291m pre tax profits etc”
Maybe one day we might see business for the workers rather than businesses for the shareholders. Oh and we might also live on the moon tomorrow as well. Its called the circle of life it goes round and round and where it stops nobody knows.
Top post, simcor. You’ve nailed it. This is exactly the crux of the matter.
Also, I do see food shortages coming, but the lack of bums on seats is only a tiny factor. The main factor by a huge margin are the ‘supply chain’ issues up at the head of the stream where producers have either not been able to source the raw materials to make the product in the first place, or, for the food producers, those that have been able to produce/harvest the food/crop, because of lockdowns and business closures downstream there’s either been no-one to harvest it (same problem elsewhere in the world as we have here with the cheap EE carrot pickers), no-one to take it to market or simply that the markets have been closed due to covid, or ships stuck out in the harbour for months on end because the ports are closed due to covid and/or the shipping costs are so insane that it costs more to ship that the produce is worth. Lots of products, particularly perishables, have had to be binned because of all these issues and this of course eventually flows downstream, likely showing itself as empty shelves in the supermarkets.
I’ve mentioned before, Ice Age Farmer’s youtube channel has been warning of this coming for over a year. Feed for the animals is now so expensive that it’s no longer profitable to farm because no-one will pay the prices they need to turn a profit. It’s going to get ugly over the next few years. I can see staples like fresh meat, veg and fruit disappearing from the shelves altogether or their prices will be so ridiculously high that the current lamb prices will look like a bargain in comparison.
On that BBC link: “However, most of the solutions are likely to be driven by industry, with progress already being made in testing and hiring, and a big push towards improving pay, working conditions and diversity.”
That’s a word that’s as bad as ‘efficiency.’
Thinking was Rob22… something said about RDCs and turn round tines which is an excellent point because it causes or can cause so much downtime. If you’re on a bay for four hours that’s lost time. If there’s ten bays and it’s the same for all that’s effectively a “weeks” worth of work hours lost. Perhaps a time, using the supposed shortage, to get back to a time when demurrage becomes a thing again?
The indications locally are that if the weather remains benign we are heading for a bumper crop of arable.
Meanwhile it seems that the main concern is the potential effect upon profits. Hence the calls for extending drivers hours - make the drivers work harder in other words - allowing foreign workers in to depress wages and the usual joke: " bring in the army".
cav551:
The indications locally are that if the weather remains benign we are heading for a bumper crop of arable.Meanwhile it seems that the main concern is the potential effect upon profits. Hence the calls for extending drivers hours - make the drivers work harder in other words - allowing foreign workers in to depress wages and the usual joke: " bring in the army".
Oh Yes!
100,000? shortfall of drivers.
UK army currently 83,000. And they are all standing around, with their hands in their pockets, doing nowt.
If they get mobilised can we please have the security guards and gate staff at RDCs put on guard duty at Buck House? No one would ever get in!
toonsy:
Thinking was Rob22… something said about RDCs and turn round tines which is an excellent point because it causes or can cause so much downtime. If you’re on a bay for four hours that’s lost time. If there’s ten bays and it’s the same for all that’s effectively a “weeks” worth of work hours lost. Perhaps a time, using the supposed shortage, to get back to a time when demurrage becomes a thing again?
On Thursday I did two Tesco deliveries; firstly I did 26 pallets to Daventry, back to the yard, changed trailers and then 26 pallets to Doncaster. I was in Daventry for 4 hours and Doncaster for 3 and a half! That’s almost a normal working day stationary on bays with the vehicle not earning. It’s unsustainable IMO and a demurrage charge of £100 per hour after the first hour would persuade them to employ an adequate staffing levels to facilitate reasonable turnaround times.
I also heard from our traffic office that the supermarkets are double ordering against the possibility of not receiving the loads in the first place. This then creates the problem of wastage for fresh stock and also storage issues through lack of space.
the maoster:
toonsy:
Thinking was Rob22… something said about RDCs and turn round tines which is an excellent point because it causes or can cause so much downtime. If you’re on a bay for four hours that’s lost time. If there’s ten bays and it’s the same for all that’s effectively a “weeks” worth of work hours lost. Perhaps a time, using the supposed shortage, to get back to a time when demurrage becomes a thing again?On Thursday I did two Tesco deliveries; firstly I did 26 pallets to Daventry, back to the yard, changed trailers and then 26 pallets to Doncaster. I was in Daventry for 4 hours and Doncaster for 3 and a half! That’s almost a normal working day stationary on bays with the vehicle not earning. It’s unsustainable IMO and a demurrage charge of £100 per hour after the first hour would persuade them to employ an adequate staffing levels to facilitate reasonable turnaround times.
I also heard from our traffic office that the supermarkets are double ordering against the possibility of not receiving the loads in the first place. This then creates the problem of wastage for fresh stock and also storage issues through lack of space.
So there’s no shortage of headless mobile chickens then
Sent while from gods know where
the maoster:
toonsy:
Thinking was Rob22… something said about RDCs and turn round tines which is an excellent point because it causes or can cause so much downtime. If you’re on a bay for four hours that’s lost time. If there’s ten bays and it’s the same for all that’s effectively a “weeks” worth of work hours lost. Perhaps a time, using the supposed shortage, to get back to a time when demurrage becomes a thing again?On Thursday I did two Tesco deliveries; firstly I did 26 pallets to Daventry, back to the yard, changed trailers and then 26 pallets to Doncaster. I was in Daventry for 4 hours and Doncaster for 3 and a half! That’s almost a normal working day stationary on bays with the vehicle not earning. It’s unsustainable IMO and a demurrage charge of £100 per hour after the first hour would persuade them to employ an adequate staffing levels to facilitate reasonable turnaround times.
I also heard from our traffic office that the supermarkets are double ordering against the possibility of not receiving the loads in the first place. This then creates the problem of wastage for fresh stock and also storage issues through lack of space.
There probably isn’t the square footage required in the Tosco warehouses. If you expand the operation to include the new express stores and also decide to do bread through the warehouses instead of direct, when the warehouses weren’t designed for this, there will be bottlenecks. Add in the lack of drivers on the Tosco side and they probably can’t clear the decks in the goods-in. But no, when they build the warehouses, they don’t allow for expansion.