I never saw this kind of thing when a regular company driver , if you don’t have any holidays/ sickness between now & June 1st you will get £300 , we will also be doing a draw on the 4 th June , 10 am for £2500 , txt received
Now it’s not the first time I’ve seen this type of crap since doing agency ( ffs everyone should have a holiday , if your sick , your bloody sick ) , so what have you agency drivers been upto over the years to encourage this kind of behaviour by agencies .
I got given a new Lidl carriers bag by the transport office.
Which is nice cause I’ve been using the same ones l for 3 years.
It’s the changeover from IR35 to PAYE, some firms are dangling the carrot to the ltd drivers
I worked as agency for Halfords in Redditch a few years back delivering bicycles. We were offered a £100 bonus if we worked every day we legally could during December.
We were really maxing the hours too. The first thing the TM asked when you came off a run was; “How many hours have you got left?”
They’re just wanting to make sure they retain what is a shrinking pool of drivers and try to attract new drivers during a busy period, it’s been going on for donkeys years especially Stobart Tesco contract. Even seen as much as £100 per shift bonus being offered running up to Xmas and that was for Goole RDC.
Well I have just been given an £8 a week pay rise!!! Time for pastures new i think.
All agencies are seriously short of drivers, due at least in part to eastern European drivers returning home en masse.
For some bizarre reason which I cannot even begin to get my head around, this has not resulted in pay rates increasing.
It seems as if both the client and the agency would prefer to have a truck sitting idle in the yard than offer a quid or two more on the hourly rate,
Harry Monk:
All agencies are seriously short of drivers, due at least in part to eastern European drivers returning home en masse.For some bizarre reason which I cannot even begin to get my head around, this has not resulted in pay rates increasing.
It seems as if both the client and the agency would prefer to have a truck sitting idle in the yard than offer a quid or two more on the hourly rate,
If the eastern european drivers have all gone home (not noticed this in my area, based on the drivers’ names) then that means the reason why the pay rates are as they are is because the brits are willing to work for them. In my area the rates are less now than they were a decade ago, and that’s before you even take into consideration inflation, food price increases, rent increases, CT increase, utils increase, car cost (fuel/ins/purchase price) increases.
I remember doing Argos, DHL, MCS&T on sundays 10 years ago for 18 quid an hour on PAYE (not umbrella). The highest round here now is 17 quid on a sunday for ltd for the local agencies with many only offering 13-16. Full PAYE sunday rates are max £16, £2 less than they were a decade ago 
.
The big nationwide agencies like Pertemps, Manpower, Gi, will see you 20 quid on a sunday at places like DHL, KNDL (or whatever they’re called these days), Asda, John Smiths but these are the exception rather than the rule and often require you to do 12 weeks at a lower PAYE rate like 12-13 quid until you’re entitled to parity pay.
I’m currently s/e not ltd but trying to get any agency round here to pay more than £14 for nights is impossible and not many doing s/e anyway. One will pay £14.50 but only when they’re desperate. I’ve given up with sats and suns as no-one will offer work for the rates I want. They’ll give me work at £15 for sats and £17 for suns but my phone won’t ring at anything above those, because they have a good supply of drivers willing to do the work for lower rates.
They’ve all said from 4 April I’ll either need to come on their books at £12.60 per hour PAYE nights (their argument for the low rate is they have to pay my NI contributions) or £14 via Payme umbrella PAYE who effectively charge 10% per week capped at £15. It’s a joke and I’ve had enough of these constant squeezes on my earnings. All the agencies wax lyrical about how they can’t pay any more because their clients won’t pay, but it’s down to them to stick together and essentially force their hand by putting up the rates.
The problem as I see it is two-fold: 1 is that there are too many agencies all fighting for the same limited amount of work offering lower rates to the clients to secure the work and 2. is that there are too many drivers willing to work for the poor money offered.
I was talking to an agency driver on Friday night at the fuel pumps. He was doing sugar tanks for Abbey out of Newark for Coca-cola and was getting £10 per hour! He even said he was on the better rate as there was another agency only paying £9 per hour out of Newark, on nights!
I’ve applied to get in at Royal Mail at YDC. It’s £17 there after 12 weeks and £19.96 for unsociable hours. I’ve heard the rates are going up by 84p per hour next month too?
Harry Monk:
For some bizarre reason which I cannot even begin to get my head around, this has not resulted in pay rates increasing.It seems as if both the client and the agency would prefer to have a truck sitting idle in the yard than offer a quid or two more on the hourly rate,
The East Euros are probably gradually realising why work here for wages which aren’t that great factoring in living costs and when there is more better quality distance work available at home.
While if the customer refuses to pay the fuel costs + the extra complication and resulting depreciation costs, of the ever increasing emissions requirements + the quid or two more on the hourly rate what other choice does the operator have if he doesn’t want to run at a loss. 
Massive reduction in road fuel taxation and withdrawal from Euro emissions regs is the way forward for the UK road transport industry and the economy in general.
Carryfast:
Harry Monk:
For some bizarre reason which I cannot even begin to get my head around, this has not resulted in pay rates increasing.It seems as if both the client and the agency would prefer to have a truck sitting idle in the yard than offer a quid or two more on the hourly rate,
The East Euros are probably gradually realising why work here for wages which aren’t that great factoring in living costs and when there is more better quality distance work available at home.
While if the customer refuses to pay the fuel costs + the extra complication and resulting depreciation costs, of the ever increasing emissions requirements + the quid or two more on the hourly rate what other choice does the operator have if he doesn’t want to run at a loss.
Massive reduction in road fuel taxation and withdrawal from Euro emissions regs is the way forward for the UK road transport industry and the economy in general.
Then they should have thought about that before tendering for the work. Usual story of race to the bottom.
DCPCFML:
Carryfast:
Harry Monk:
For some bizarre reason which I cannot even begin to get my head around, this has not resulted in pay rates increasing.It seems as if both the client and the agency would prefer to have a truck sitting idle in the yard than offer a quid or two more on the hourly rate,
The East Euros are probably gradually realising why work here for wages which aren’t that great factoring in living costs and when there is more better quality distance work available at home.
While if the customer refuses to pay the fuel costs + the extra complication and resulting depreciation costs, of the ever increasing emissions requirements + the quid or two more on the hourly rate what other choice does the operator have if he doesn’t want to run at a loss.
Massive reduction in road fuel taxation and withdrawal from Euro emissions regs is the way forward for the UK road transport industry and the economy in general.
Then they should have thought about that before tendering for the work. Usual story of race to the bottom.
Ignore carryfast, he will make excuses for employers paying bottom dollar, always skint but have million pound homes posh cars on PCP etc … reality is if a company is scraping the barrel due to having such a lower tender they deserve to go under…in reality, because all drivers are different , some can live very well on £10 - £12 an hour.
It all depends on overhead costs, not everyone needs to have a car on finance, some have 2 wages coming in etc… most don’t need to waste £100-£200 a month on sky tv and other non needed items.
shullbit:
Well I have just been given an £8 a week pay rise!!! Time for pastures new i think.
I’ve recently be given a little over £2.75/hr rise (PAYE), which is around £100+ per week when doing an average of 10hr day shifts, this is on top of the 25%-30% rise we got due to pay parity last April
Harry Monk:
All agencies are seriously short of drivers, due at least in part to eastern European drivers returning home en masse.For some bizarre reason which I cannot even begin to get my head around, this has not resulted in pay rates increasing.
It seems as if both the client and the agency would prefer to have a truck sitting idle in the yard than offer a quid or two more on the hourly rate,
It’s because the “driver shortage” was always a myth. Trucks aren’t sitting idle - they’re just being driven in the normal fashion by an appropriate number of full-timers.
Carryfast:
withdrawal from Euro emissions regs is the way forward for the UK road transport industry and the economy in general.
That shows how far out of touch you are with where the industry is heading and how the policy makers see the UK’s future.
dozy:
I never saw this kind of thing when a regular company driver , if you don’t have any holidays/ sickness between now & June 1st you will get £300 , we will also be doing a draw on the 4 th June , 10 am for £2500 , txt received
Now it’s not the first time I’ve seen this type of crap since doing agency ( ffs everyone should have a holiday , if your sick , your bloody sick ) , so what have you agency drivers been upto over the years to encourage this kind of behaviour by agencies .
Linehaul for DPD were offering their employees some bonus payments leading up to Christmas last year, for working rest days where legal and had no time off. So, not just agencies.