This is a serious question, why do we put up with such low wages? I am working for £8.26 an hour (not through choice!) which is NOT the worst around the central belt in Scotland. 10 or12 years ago that was a good wage, now, it barely keeps the wolf from the door.
(Incidentally, my 12 year old daughter just asked me what I was doing on the computer and I told her the question I was posting, her reply was “Isn’t it because it’s such an easy job Dad?”)
Public perception of our industry is obviously as crap as ever…
It’s called supply and demand. You wouldn’t pay £5 for a tin of beans, just because you had it, you would expect change, or go to another shop. But if only one shop were stocking them, you either pay your fiver or your beans on toast, are just toast. If you don’t like low wages, change careers, or ■■■■ it up and wait in the trough, for another peak
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
I’d work for free to drive a Scania P400 with a full set of kelsa lights, a set of frillies for the windows and a couple of Michelin men on the front, tell you what chuck in a dream catcher and I’ll work Saturday too!
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
That isn’t strictly true, maybe with one man bands and small fleets, but the big players are too big to fail and in this economic climate big is relative.
If a company has thirty trucks and trailers, all financed with plenty of payments still to make and they start losing money and cannot pay the bills, what happens? Does the finance company steam in and ■■■■■■ back the equipment? Not such a good idea, the used market is on its arse and throwing thirty more trucks and trailers into it ain’t going to improve it. So they come to an agreement with the company and help them try to trade through the crisis, this way they’re getting something back each month through reduced payments, or they give them a payment holiday to allow their cashflow to catch up so they can making payments again, it’s a gamble, as the company may still fail, but it can be the better option for the finance company. The same also applies to banks, if a company has a huge overdraft or outstanding loan it makes sense for the bank to try and help them out of the hole rather than pulling the plug and getting SFA.
Because WE’RE AFRAID FOR OUR JOBS! STOBRATS told us " there’s 2000 on the waiting list, waiting for " YOUR! " job, scare mongering " I used to say " let me on the tele! " they wouldn’t have had a fan club left!
Non unionised jobs, equals no one to negotiate your BETTER terms and conditions! one day they’ll wake up and see it through! think Harry monk said we should all be on £2,000 plus from twenty years ago with inflation! so the answer to your question is " THERE’S TOO MANY YELLOWBELLIES, especially at STOBRATS TRAFFORD PARK! " they had their chance, I did all the dirty work for them, but the brew room warriors who " talked a good FIGHT! " away from managers ears, fell silent ONCE IT CAME TO IT! I got the last laugh!
Supply and demand as already said, plus it is a fairly easy job. Pretty much anyone can train to do it. Same with electronic engineering or bricklaying or shelf stacking or many other trades … sometimes complicated stuff, but most people could learn it if they were interested in it. Sales, marketing and advertising on the other hand require a certain flair that can’t be learnt and not everyone is born with it hence the big money.
There could be a hundred different answers to this question, and all of them valid, not two peoples circumstances are the same.
Ironic though how a 12 year old girl has put her finger straight on the root cause of the problem.
Give her my regards by the way, she’ll go far, and when she wants an old ex lorry driver to chauffer around in her Lexus 600 between business meetings tell her to keep me in mind won’t you…
The job is easy, its too easy now, drivers wrote their downfall by encouraging the lazy job with the lazy lorries, when the job was hard graft with lorries that needed strength and skill and a certain toughness to cope with, then the job wasn’t oversubscribed like it is now.
There was no glory in ■■■■■■■ 20tons onto a flat trailer, then roping and sheeting it, then driving an old banger with no power anything 200 miles to unsheet it and handball it off in the pouring rain, it took some hard blokes (and few hardy women) to manage the job back then, the pay whilst not wonderful generally reflected that.
I’m not saying we should go back to those days, but its gone too far the other way now where we have too many that can’t cope if their bloody sat nav packs up and they’ll drive into the nearest low bridge, any fool can pilot a mdoern lorry up a motorway and reverse onto a warehouse bay and just about manage to open the doors and in many cases thats exactly what the job has been reduced too.
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
Drivers won’t negotiate. Most firms make an offer, but if it’s not good enough they can always say so and ask for more.
I have. You won’t always get it, but most of the time you’ll get it.
I’ve just turned 30 and been driving hgv for 6 years.
Had a string a ■■■■■■ jobs the first few years after leaving school. Now find myself earning over 30k, course I’m away all week but the main thing for me is I enjoy my job, enjoy driving lorries and been out an about,work for a good company and can see myself been here for years to come.
I’m earning double what I ever did before I started driving trucks. People may think we should be earning more but as said in a previous post,it’s not a hard job anymore. I personally am happy with what I earn
Roverman:
This is a serious question, why do we put up with such low wages? I am working for £8.26 an hour (not through choice!) which is NOT the worst around the central belt in Scotland. 10 or12 years ago that was a good wage, now, it barely keeps the wolf from the door.
(Incidentally, my 12 year old daughter just asked me what I was doing on the computer and I told her the question I was posting, her reply was “Isn’t it because it’s such an easy job Dad?”)
Public perception of our industry is obviously as crap as ever…
I started driving doing furniture removals to Ireland in 1972, I did that for a year and then worked in the office of a truck rental company until 1976.
I then went back on the road for eighteen months and concluded that it was no way to earn a living.
I have not driven for a living since then, I have done about ten years on class one as a casual.
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
Have you plucked those figures out of the air?
No but been at places where they moan about the cost of everything but they have no choice but to pay, wages they just cut because they know some driver will drive
newmercman:
That isn’t strictly true, maybe with one man bands and small fleets, but the big players are too big to fail and in this economic climate big is relative.
If a company has thirty trucks and trailers, all financed with plenty of payments still to make and they start losing money and cannot pay the bills, what happens? Does the finance company steam in and ■■■■■■ back the equipment? Not such a good idea, the used market is on its arse and throwing thirty more trucks and trailers into it ain’t going to improve it. So they come to an agreement with the company and help them try to trade through the crisis, this way they’re getting something back each month through reduced payments, or they give them a payment holiday to allow their cashflow to catch up so they can making payments again, it’s a gamble, as the company may still fail, but it can be the better option for the finance company. The same also applies to banks, if a company has a huge overdraft or outstanding loan it makes sense for the bank to try and help them out of the hole rather than pulling the plug and getting SFA.
Excellent post! Debt creates a vicious circle and guess who is right at the centre of that circle? B…A…N…K…S
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
Have you plucked those figures out of the air?
No but been at places where they moan about the cost of everything but they have no choice but to pay, wages they just cut because they know some driver will drive
I think a more accurate approximation would be “It costs more to fuel a truck for a week, than it does to pay the driver for the week”. Fuel bills will vary siginificantly depending on the mileage done/type of work done by the truck over the week, but a range from £500 to £2000 per week for fuel is not unrealistic.
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
That isn’t strictly true, maybe with one man bands and small fleets, but the big players are too big to fail and in this economic climate big is relative.
If a company has thirty trucks and trailers, all financed with plenty of payments still to make and they start losing money and cannot pay the bills, what happens? Does the finance company steam in and ■■■■■■ back the equipment? Not such a good idea, the used market is on its arse and throwing thirty more trucks and trailers into it ain’t going to improve it. So they come to an agreement with the company and help them try to trade through the crisis, this way they’re getting something back each month through reduced payments, or they give them a payment holiday to allow their cashflow to catch up so they can making payments again, it’s a gamble, as the company may still fail, but it can be the better option for the finance company. The same also applies to banks, if a company has a huge overdraft or outstanding loan it makes sense for the bank to try and help them out of the hole rather than pulling the plug and getting SFA.
It’s a pity the banks didn’t use this logic in the early nineties instead of evicting families and creating a massive surplus of houses they couldn’t sell.
The reason is simple.A 12 hour day spent driving a truck is like 6 hours or less spent working in a factory or shop,or warehouse.Or to put it another way that £8 per hour is worth £16 per hour working inside.That’s why you don’t see many drivers trading the so called ‘low hourly wage rate’ of driving for a living for the so called ‘better’ hourly wage of other types of job.While wages in general are totally dependent on the working class having strong unions and the resulting the economy in general.Which,unless you believe all the government bs,is going down the tubes fast.
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
That isn’t strictly true, maybe with one man bands and small fleets, but the big players are too big to fail and in this economic climate big is relative.
If a company has thirty trucks and trailers, all financed with plenty of payments still to make and they start losing money and cannot pay the bills, what happens? Does the finance company steam in and ■■■■■■ back the equipment? Not such a good idea, the used market is on its arse and throwing thirty more trucks and trailers into it ain’t going to improve it. So they come to an agreement with the company and help them try to trade through the crisis, this way they’re getting something back each month through reduced payments, or they give them a payment holiday to allow their cashflow to catch up so they can making payments again, it’s a gamble, as the company may still fail, but it can be the better option for the finance company. The same also applies to banks, if a company has a huge overdraft or outstanding loan it makes sense for the bank to try and help them out of the hole rather than pulling the plug and getting SFA.
It’s a pity the banks didn’t use this logic in the early nineties instead of evicting families and creating a massive surplus of houses they couldn’t sell.
Aaaah but they did sell them…to their mates who had a pile of money and when the property prices went up again…they made a fortune from them, as bankers and their old school tie buddies usually do
mac12:
Because drivers keep taking the jobs, if nobody took the low paid work rates would have to go up. Wages are a small part of the trucks cost a days fuel is more than a weeks wages and when it goes up companies moan but still keep paying if they are making no money they would all be parked up.
Have you plucked those figures out of the air?
No but been at places where they moan about the cost of everything but they have no choice but to pay, wages they just cut because they know some driver will drive
I think a more accurate approximation would be “It costs more to fuel a truck for a week, than it does to pay the driver for the week”. Fuel bills will vary siginificantly depending on the mileage done/type of work done by the truck over the week, but a range from £500 to £2000 per week for fuel is not unrealistic.
Or to put it another way one of the reasons why truck drivers earn less than train drivers is because truck drivers’ wages are being used to subsidise over taxation of the road transport industry.As opposed to the rail industry at least in terms of fuel taxation.
I used to say " let me on the tele! " 
think Harry monk said we should all be on £2,000 plus from twenty years ago with inflation! 
so the answer to your question is " THERE’S TOO MANY YELLOWBELLIES, especially at STOBRATS TRAFFORD PARK! " 
I got the last laugh! 
