Harry Monk:
albion:
In my case, I wasn’t going to take chance on someone dragging a trailer round Europe with a load of hazardous on the back unsure if he was impaired or not.
No, of course not. I presume that as a responsible employer you arranged for some type of treatment or rehabilitation?
Yes thank you Harry, I am indeed responsible.
I know that the fine people of Trucknet moan about companies that cut corners and don’t follow the law, so they’ll be delighted to hear that part of my job includes a legal obligation to maintain the integrity of MoD clearances. In real life that means advising our sponsor if you become aware of anything that compromises, which includes drug use. His clearance was rescinded the same day.
Secondly, I have to advise our Insurers and they wouldn’t insure him. Because the driver resigned, I never went into the details of what it would take to get him back on insurance if it had got to that point, but I am taking an educated guess that would mean being off drugs for x amount of time.
This was about ten months into a tax year, so his earnings were going to be about 43-44,000.00 a year, call it 43,500.00 for ease. S on gardening leave that is 836.53 a week (plus another £90.00 odd for employers NI and pension contribution on top of that). At best it would be about two months before he came back, so we are in the 7200.00 - 8100. territory + ongoing drugs tests at £450.00 a pop. More likely it would be three months minimum, so 11,700.00 + ongoing drugs tests. You’ve run a business, you know the score about spending that kind of money; even for a business of our size it will impact spending elsewhere.
And somewhat selfishly, I’d view him as a risk and I don’t want to be done for corporate manslaughter - it would be highly unlikely, but it would be lurking at the back of my mind.
And finally, we took his mate on and they ran together pretty much all of the time. His mate didn’t want to run with him anymore, something that had started before we made the discovery. That’s a point that I’m not going to expand on, but there is more to it.
On a personal note, I help my lads and lass out where I can, I’ve had thank you cards and chocolates from drivers wives for the things I’ve done over the years. However, I also believe strongly in personal responsibility and sorting your own life out when you screw up, and that bleeds over into how I think other people should deal with their lives. I gave him a job when he was under 25, trained him up and let him loose only when he was happy to do so, we might do long hours sometimes but they aren’t hard hours, he got to see exciting places, be part of a team - our customer is easy to work alongside, drive with his mate, stay in hotels around Europe, earn decent money for a lad with no qualifications. I feel I did my bit.
I’m sure there will now be a queue of people to tell me all the things I did wrong.