I would like to reply to Driver Require CEO Kieran Smith's article which only shows the issue from a selfish point of view ie the agency trying get more money for itself. I would like to offer up another side to the issue.
Having worked in logistics for some 30 years now I agree that drivers are underpaid but that is driven by the consumer wanting everything as fresh and as cheap as can be. Kieran may want to ask the public if they would like the price of everything to go up so drivers can have a good pay rise this year! I can tell you what the answer will be.
What I can tell you is that drivers' wages are dictated by the supermarkets of this world. They sign off any wage rise which is tied into their annual budget which again is tied into the shares.
So for Kieran to say hauliers should pay more is quite laughable when the hauliers themselves, with margins sitting at around 2%, are being squeezed by the supermarkets, who in turn have their shareholders to consider. Ask everyone in the UK if they would like a substantial pay rise this year for doing the same as you done last year and the answer will be 'yes', myself included.
Unfortunately that is not how the economy works or democracy.
One of the reasons we cannot encourage more people into transport is because it has such a bad press - 'diesel-guzzling juggernauts polluting our roads and poisoning our kids' - and, when you see traffic jams full of LGVs, who wants to sit in traffic? I have been a driver myself for around 18 years previous to being in senior management and I can tell you that money is not always the answer. A good employer, a clean tidy uniform, a clean tidy vehicle, benefits from the employer such as shares, annual bonus, healthcare etc all come above wages when you sit down with the drivers and ask 'if I can improve things for you what would that be?'
What Kieran fails to acknowledge is that quite a majority of drivers choose to carry out agency work. I know quite a few that left full time work for agency work as it pays £1 per hour more. They then complain that the shifts they have been offered are not what they 'like', as their mindset is that they should have the pick of the shifts and the core employed drivers should pick up the slack of the remaining shifts.
When Margaret Thatcher brought in the agency workforce they were designed to pick up the slack in peak for those who wanted flexible working around parental duties. The agencies now have tried for several years to manipulate the shifts to suit their drivers to the detriment of the contract for which they are supplying drivers, leaving shifts uncovered by any driver which then have to be subbed out to other hauliers at a substantial cost to the 3PL.
Currently agency drivers are paid more than core drivers due to the nature of their on/off type of work and they also get to choose the better shifts in the majority of cases.
To put this right first we need to change the way we shop, starting with not wanting everything in the shops for 6am or 8am every day. This would allow the UK to dramatically down size the amount of fleet we run and bring down the amount of drivers required. The upside of this would be to bring down the running costs of any contract including the wage bill, thus freeing up funds to pay drivers better wages. The money has to come from somewhere and in my view this would be the only way.
Gary Gates
