alder:
I don’t understand why all truck drivers in the UK don’t form their OWN agency and undercut the competitors? We know they are just taking our hourly rate, for what? If drivers formed their own national agency for truckers the benefits would be:
- Fair distribution of work at a higher hourly rate
- A chance for newly qualified drivers to get experience as a second man even if that was a work experience scheme where they go along to learn the job and KNOW that they will get work on the back of it
- No messing drivers about while you hunt around to see if someone will do it cheaper!
- Political power to fight unjust rules like one rule for foreigners and one for us
I am sure there would be other advantages like putting pressure on owners to stop them leaning on drivers to break the law for a job etc.
If we formed our own agency and undercut current prices, then we’d be paid even less still!
The problem isn’t “too many middlemen” but too little inflationary pressure on wages, mostly thanks to ongoing-high fuel prices.
Back in the 1990’s, Oil fell to $12 a barrel, even after Gulf War I. Nowdays it’s been spending most of it’s time between $75 and $110, which makes transport overly expensive to operate, unless you can cut corners with cheap labour. There’s been quite a few operators already gone west as a result of “maintaining high wages” in the face of an ongoing high fuel price.
The ongoing high fuel price in turn is a result of ■■■■■■■■■ western government policy by declaring a damned war that cannot ever have a victorious end, because there’s “too many enemy” out there, most of whom we can’t even identify in advance. The British Government realised they could never win the war against America back in the late 18th century for similar reasons. The “Enemy” looks like the rest of us. How do you tell who’s on your side, and who’s not? There were not enough of us back then to win the “war of independence” vs the newly minted United States, even with the best firepower and armed forces in the world that we had at that time. So… The colonies were let go, because the war could never be won.
A better war to wage against those that would outbreed us in our own lands is to introduce a flat rate tax and scrap all tax offsetting outright.
That way, there’d be no more large families getting benefits over long-hours workers, no workers on expense accounts instead of decent wages, and most of all - all newcomers would have to net contribute into the system, instead of taking a minimum wage job, and claiming everything under the sun, whilst not paying anything back in.
People putting in the hours get to take home more of their pay, because the flat rate tax is low - maybe 10-15% which IS possible if people on £60k plus don’t get to offset it all away as they do now, or claim more than their wages in benefits because they’ve got tribes of kids. This fair isle of ours is in great need of a serious “social engineering” project - but one that doesn’t harm anyone in the process. It isn’t right wing, just common sense - just the same as the US colonists grievances that eventually led to their breaking away from the British Empire was.
We don’t want to see fuel priced out of our affordability now do we? Lobby your MP today.
