Crap pay and deductions as well. Ridiculous
When you get an overtime structure that staircases upwards from say, 1.5x rate to 2x rate at the 8 hours and then the 12 hours mark, I’m as guilty as anyone when it came to “grabbing as many over-12-hour shifts as I could get” thus creaming off the maxmum amount of 2x overtime I could get. 
If you think about it though, especially as one finds themselves on the wrong side of 45 and all that, - It is healthy to push yourself to do 12-15 hour shifts all the time, because that’s the only way to max your pay?
…Probably not. 
These are the real curses of poor basic pay with overtime, or salaried pay with too many basic hours. 
I regard all breaks when driving the same way as I would if working in a workshop, factory, or office. For the purpose of argument, if I start at 8 and finish at 5 I have been on the premises for 9 hours. My midday break will be either 1 hour unpaid or 1/2 hour unpaid, so I am entitlted to either 8 or 8 1/2 hours pay for that day. I will also have taken a paid tea break in the morning or the afternoon which will probably amount to a total of about 20 minutes. When driving, those tea breaks become the unscheduled stop at the services for a toilet break, a cup of coffee, or a stretch of the legs.
So when driving I expect to be unpaid for either one hour if that is the contract, or for my first 45 minute total of breaks. Any second legally required break periods I normally expect to be paid for, ie no to 13 1/2 hrs pay for a 15 hour book on - book off.
Roymondo:
newmercman:
Unpaid breaks? Really?So I could choose not to have one then? Of course not, two laws tell me I can’t, driver’s hours and WTD.
Ergo the job the company pays me to do has a legal requirement that I take a break, I cannot choose to work without breaking the law.
So they should pay me, no ifs, no buts.
What idiot was the first one to accept having that one pushed up their Gary Glitter
By the same logic, they should also pay you for your ( legally required) Daily Rest…
Yep, they should, they want a load moved that cannot be completed in a legal working day, they should pay you for your rest period.
They do, it id called night out money, again back in the day some cab happy idiot decided to do it for expenses only and set the standard that the rest of us had to maintain.
Typical of lorry drivers, the race to the bottom continues 
Good point, spot on.
newmercman:
Roymondo:
newmercman:
Unpaid breaks? Really?So I could choose not to have one then? Of course not, two laws tell me I can’t, driver’s hours and WTD.
Ergo the job the company pays me to do has a legal requirement that I take a break, I cannot choose to work without breaking the law.
So they should pay me, no ifs, no buts.
What idiot was the first one to accept having that one pushed up their Gary Glitter
By the same logic, they should also pay you for your ( legally required) Daily Rest…
Yep, they should, they want a load moved that cannot be completed in a legal working day, they should pay you for your rest period.
They do, it id called night out money, again back in the day some cab happy idiot decided to do it for expenses only and set the standard that the rest of us had to maintain.
Typical of lorry drivers, the race to the bottom continues
I worked for a firm that paid Saturday rate until 1400hrs then Sunday rate. I always tried to take my break before 1400hrs but it was normally deducted from the Sunday rate.
Torkey:
trubster:
Yes, minimum 8 is just that.Nothing worse than a 8.75 on a timesheet
They only pay me 7.25 hours for an 8 hour shift !
Not cricket.
I take my 45 rest over a weekend? Should I kick off over the amount of double time that I’d never have done, but have lost.
How can you lose money at overtime rate if you’ve not done it at overtime rate?
newmercman:
They do, it id called night out money, again back in the day some cab happy idiot decided to do it for expenses only and set the standard that the rest of us had to maintain.
That’s what i do to get as nights out as I can and it works, although i’m cab happy I’m not an idiot!
It costs me about £20 (fuel+maintenance on the car) to get to and from work everyday so either way I look at it I don’t have to drive 1.5 hours to get home and then the same to get to work in the morning, so I get a 3 extra hours rest, £20, and i get my tea for free.
although it would be nice to be paid, it’s worth more to me than insisting to be paid for nights out and not getting them, losing out to someone like me!
Race to the bottom? That’s reality! we’re in an industry where competition for work is intense and the margins are tight, companies are looking to cut costs as much as possible to give the lowest bid for contracts and get the work. The only thing they have control of is the cost and workload of the drivers, if they could get us to work 24 hour days 7 days a week with no breaks for minimum wage and they would! But do you think the company will make any more money? No! Because everyone will do it forcing the price of contracts down.
Everyone is in it for themselves and as long as there’s a little money to made there will always be someone who will undercut and get the work.
Ok jobseeker, so the companies are trying to undercut everybody, the founders are probably the same people that started doing night’s away for next to nothing all those years ago, but I digress. So they go for the best deal they can on lorries, tyres, fuel and wages, the manufacturers will discount to a point and go no further, the same applies to tyres and fuel, but wages is a different story, no matter how low they go, some idiot will turn up for work and do a bunch of hours to make up for the ■■■■ poor wage and top it up with night out money.
I hear what you say about your situation and when I say idiot, I’m not being personal, but all of us, myself included, who have accepted unpaid breaks, the pittance that masquerades as night out money etc etc etc are all to blame.
I know it’s tough out there and anybody pulling their tripe out for endless hours week after week to provide for their family deserves credit, but it is ■■■■■■■■ that only by doing that can a living wage be earned, that’s what I’m trying to say 
you’re right about the idiots that will almost pay to do the job, i know one of them and to be fair he’s a grafter he sandblasts steel all day for minimum wage after the cost of him getting to work and his dinner, he only takes home £100-120 a week! his wife has to provide the rest! 
They deduct breaks these days? Crikey that’s changed…
I think the problem is transport is a very professional transport job paid in the same fashion as an un professional job such as an unskilled factory worker/ office clerk.
For example, train drivers are salaried and on contracted hours. It was the same at my company (an airline). You were on a contract that stated an average of 37.5 Hours duty a week and were salaried as such. Yes, we had alsorts of disruption and such - but there were agreements in place to cover that (a scheduling agreement) . This meant disruption and overtime was paid for accordingly and your hours protected.
The other suprise to me is that hauliers (can only afford to I guess) only pay the subsistence allowance on nights out when tramping and not pay you a wage or treat you as being at work by paying you. That is universally not standard in aviation, and I suspect the maritime and rail industries too. You’re there at their behest and responsible for the vehicle and load. The subsistence is for your food, not pay.
I think the fashion and attitude in which they seem to pay in road transport still smacks of when I worked in a factory yet the profession definitely shares its similarities with other transport cousins in what’s required of an employee.
On a 13 hr shift I would be having 45 minutes statutory plus another half hour.
Law states you cant work more than 6 hours in one stretch,personally I wouldnt go that long without a break anyways and would be having 2 breaks in 13 hours
lolipop:
On a 13 hr shift I would be having 45 minutes statutory plus another half hour.
Law states you cant work more than 6 hours in one stretch,personally I wouldnt go that long without a break anyways and would be having 2 breaks in 13 hours
13 hour shift with just drive, other work and breaks could be done with a split 15+30 break to cover the shift depending on how the driving time worked out
Or it could be done with a 45 + 15