Rob K:
So I was right on the WTD thread when I questioned that the 48hrs is actually, in reality, driving time. As you’ve said Ken, the rest of the day is spent tossing it off basically aka “periods of availability”.
That would depend what job you do, I am in removals at the moment, my normal working day would be 13 hr spread over with two hours of breaks and 11 hours work, be that driving, unloading, loading, packing or anything else I have to do, so I will only be able to work 74 days out of 119, so besides my weekends, I will have to take 11 days off every 4 months
So confusion still regns eh? I am still hearing as many interpretations of the WTD as the number of people I talk to The govt. are due to publish their latest interpretation of these “new” rules any time now. No doubt they will be equally vague and inconclusive. We can wish for better hours and a fair wage, but this will only happen when we ALL stick together. Thats unlikely, especially with so many immigrants likely to swell the driving ranks in the next few weeks, eager as they will be to please their new employers…So folks,best advice for now seems to be “take the best deal you can get and if wages or terms are poor, vote with your feet!”
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Since when did drivers/ UK road haulage in general ever stick together Mirrorman?
We could have got somewhere in the fuel disputes if it hadnt fallen apart at the seams, another 2 weeks & they would have been ready to sit down to talk sensibly.
The bloody farmers (the same farmers that pull knackered old 40 footers around with tractors running on red doing local haulage) were using us as the foot soldiers to get their own way with the govt. & were not ‘with us’ at all.
This industry (& its drivers) always cuts its own throat, thats the nature of the beast… there will always be some pillock that will run for nothing more than diesel money & its those pillocks that are keeping us all scratching about for a decent living.
Even when the flood of immigrants do arrive (which they no doubt will, there will be plenty of firms willing to take them on due to the ‘supposed’ driver shortage, there isnt a shortage of class 1 licence holders in this country, there is a shortage of us daft enough to put up with the pay & conditions.)
There needs to be a real shakeup throughout the industry with hauliers setting the rates not customers & the big firms need to stop killing off the little guy (Stobart tried to ■■■■■■ the Wilkinsons contract off Canute by saying " give us a 5 year contract & we will give you the first 2 years free", no small player could compete with that, no small haulier could move a pallet from Lands end to John ‘O’ Groats for £15 or whatever Stobart was charging either.)
Ok, I will get off my soapbox now before it gets kicked from under me
As usual the new rules are coming in and nobody knows what to do because the government hasn’t got round to clarifying what the legislation means. I think they want enough uncertainty to give their lawyer friends a bit of work, when the employers, unions and enforcement agency take it to court, because some poor driver fell foul of poorly introduced legislation
So if I switch my tacho over to crossed hammers when hanging around doing nowt, and ensure my boss knows that’s what it means, I can go tramping for 60+ hours a week so long as I clock up at least 12 hours of hanging around during that week?
The govt. are due to publish their latest interpretation of these “new” rules any time now. No doubt they will be equally vague and inconclusive. We can wish for better hours and a fair wage, but this will only happen when we ALL stick together. Thats unlikely, especially with so many immigrants likely to swell the driving ranks in the next few weeks, eager as they will be to please their new employers…So folks,best advice for now seems to be “take the best deal you can get and if wages or terms are poor, vote with your feet!”
