Desperate for Drivers?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

I’m based in Hertfordshire, I’m a part-time/semi-retired driver. A week or so back I was contacted by one of the agencies I do bits for, saying they’re really desperate for Class 1 drivers to work on a contract delivering food and trunking to various RDCs. Upshot was, wanting to do my bit, I went through the usual assessment and induction process which thankfully was paid as it was over 9 hours.

That was a couple of weeks back. Since that day I’ve had just one days work from them, which I’m a bit surprised at tbh (I know, I should know better!), as we’re constantly told that food needs to be got out there. When I chased the agency, I got told that the site only needed silly o’clock starts, followed by the usual, we’ll get you in asap :unamused:

Don’t know if it’s just in my area, has anyone else had this? This is with one of the big national agencies, not a ‘one man band’ btw.

2

Full-timers maybe developing a limp and taking the work (or something).

3

Agencies lie all the time to get drivers on the books. There is work out there, but only if you a) don’t mind a 60 mile commute, b) £9ph, c) your start time changing by 6 hours every day. [Zb] that. Right now I do about 3-4 days a week, about 40 hours tops.

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4

Always a reason …no one believes them now

5

How handy they were happy to pay you for the assess/induct when they weren’t actually that desperate.

A cynical mind might wonder if they’re banking a small army of drivers ready to step into literal dead/ill mans shoes in the future.

6

ho god you might be right there

7

If it’s a large company they’re probably preparing themselves for when a lot of their drivers are off work self isolating or worse.

8

Agencies are always desperate for drivers, but not for work, just to keep on the books and ensure the client is never let down.

There will be plenty of panic from the transport bosses on supermarkets but until we hit 1/4 population off sick, you’re not going to see much return for your time.

Also depends what stipulations you put on work, eg: not starting before x time wont help as a lot of the supermarkets seem to have ramped up overnight deliveries. Could imagine nightshift being lucrative.

Btw, I would ask your agency for a letter stating your job, that you work for them (assuming not LTD) and that most of the work is food related on letterhead. We got one incase the police stop you.

9

Agencies like to have bums on books, when needed you will be called a lot.
Only rule of agency work is that agencies lie.

10

Sorry to burst the bubble but there won’t be a shortage of food & ‘essential’ drivers because there will be a glut of drivers from non-essential industries in companies who will be coerced into changing contracts or be laid off. All the big players, DHL, XPO, Wincanton etc. have contracts with both essential and non-essential and will use one to cover the other before resorting to agency.

11

tallyman:
Sorry to burst the bubble but there won’t be a shortage of food & ‘essential’ drivers because there will be a glut of drivers from non-essential industries in companies who will be coerced into changing contracts or be laid off. All the big players, DHL, XPO, Wincanton etc. have contracts with both essential and non-essential and will use one to cover the other before resorting to agency.

spot on ! then when the mother of all resessions starts to bit down cause of this thing there will be less jobs about than there was after the crash of 08 09, wages will bottom out along with it. last resession will seem like nothing compared to this sh@tstorm coming now. thinking of getting on the buses befor its too late to get a job there even.

12

jrt:

tallyman:
Sorry to burst the bubble but there won’t be a shortage of food & ‘essential’ drivers because there will be a glut of drivers from non-essential industries in companies who will be coerced into changing contracts or be laid off. All the big players, DHL, XPO, Wincanton etc. have contracts with both essential and non-essential and will use one to cover the other before resorting to agency.

spot on ! then when the mother of all resessions starts to bit down cause of this thing there will be less jobs about than there was after the crash of 08 09, wages will bottom out along with it. last resession will seem like nothing compared to this sh@tstorm coming now. thinking of getting on the buses befor its too late to get a job there even.

Don’t fall for the spin, the imminent depression has been put off for years now due to printing money and unlimited borrowing, hence an unpayable national debt of £2trillion.
This situation is being used as the perfect excuse, no bugger wanted to be left without a chair when the music stopped, they’ve found the best get out card money really could buy.

13

Isn’t it the job of “Management” be it Agency or Client Yard to make sure there are always “more drivers than jobs” and “Enough drivers to fill all jobs, in case some say ‘no’”?

People have never been motivated on the whole to leave full time to join an agency as such… Unless one can get by with less than 40 hours per week of work for possibly prolonged period.
I, for example - need enough work to get my stamp paid each week, with the second to late week of the month being the only time I need “full timer’s hours” that week, for instance.

Never had any trouble getting that, - so far.

It is the nature of irregular weekly hours that when it is all paid at a flat uniform rate - one takes home progressively less cash as one advances beyond tiers of hours each week…

Eg. 1-2 shifts - take home nearly ALL of the pay, as there’s little or no tax, it all being within the tax allowance.
3-4 shifts (which I favour) - take home a normal wage, pay a reasonable amount of tax
5-6 shifts - stuck on same flat rate, but now paying full tax on ALL earnings, having moved way beyond allowances. Rule of “reducing returns” applies.

I am thus relucant to work shift (5) each week if I then won’t be getting shift (6) to pay the bloody tax on top!
I cannot work six shifts per week all the time, neither.

What use is a “Any five from seven” contract for ME then? :frowning:

For me it is 4 or 6 - with five shifts in a week happening as little as possible!
…If the start of the week is 00:01 Sunday morning, then I won’t be working a 5th shift that week for any reason, if my first shift then ends up being "Monday", so no “Monday-Friday” for me, and I’ve fortunately not been compelled to work 5 shifts that doesn’t include a sunday since 2018, when I left full time, and chose to go back on agency, rather than pick up one of these “Any five from seven” jobs that I just don’t want. :grimacing:

It is possible that over the coming weeks, a glut of sideways-moved full timers will deplete the agency of spare shifts for me to work.
…As long as I get at least that “Retainer” shift of Sunday then - I will be able to get by, even if the work is “short hours” for a prolonged period.
If the agency stops using me for any entire week at a time - I will be relucantly forced to move on that very same week.
Full time jobs @ supermarkets - appear to be becoming available again BUT it is still the “Any five from seven” family-unfriendly hours rubbish that I’ve tried so hard to avoid to date…
I’d already jump at the chance to do Four-on-four-off or even “Any four nights from seven” - but they just are not out there, alas… :frowning:

14

What’s your point?

15

Juddian:

jrt:

tallyman:
Sorry to burst the bubble but there won’t be a shortage of food & ‘essential’ drivers because there will be a glut of drivers from non-essential industries in companies who will be coerced into changing contracts or be laid off. All the big players, DHL, XPO, Wincanton etc. have contracts with both essential and non-essential and will use one to cover the other before resorting to agency.

spot on ! then when the mother of all resessions starts to bit down cause of this thing there will be less jobs about than there was after the crash of 08 09, wages will bottom out along with it. last resession will seem like nothing compared to this sh@tstorm coming now. thinking of getting on the buses befor its too late to get a job there even.

Don’t fall for the spin, the imminent depression has been put off for years now due to printing money and unlimited borrowing, hence an unpayable national debt of £2trillion.
This situation is being used as the perfect excuse, no bugger wanted to be left without a chair when the music stopped, they’ve found the best get out card money really could buy.

I read a book some years ago, written by Robert Beckman called “Downwave” and it’s successor “Into the Upwave”, a prophetic work written 1988 shortly after the stock market crash that predicted a future housing boom and bust, and the last chapter “2020 Vision” is truly prophetic, bearing in mind that he passed away 13 years ago, and never lived to see his predictions come true right now…

This book has been my Bible for managing the decline for some years now. It is what inspired me to choose a ZHC rather than put up with ever-crappier full timer T&Cs with their lousy work/life balances.
It has most recently permitted me to lose absolutely NOTHING in the sudden stock market blow-up we’ve seen.
Beckman was an ardent DEflationist.
He was ridiculed in his time for being both a “Conspiracy Theorist” and “Being wrong on inflation” - which recent years since the Credit Crunch (after his own death!) proved him correct, and that we’ve been in a deflationary spiral ever since… “Debt” has brought the entire Western World low, and we are on the verge of seeing World Power shift from West to East again, like it or not.
That means Lefties hoping for the demise of Putin and Xi Ping - are never going to be satisfied, of course, whilst explaning the rise of people like Trump, Johnson, Bosonaro, and Orban.

16

“What you don’t lose to start with, is better than what you earn or win - because you don’t pay taxes on reduced losses like you do on increased income, or large profits of sale”

Following that mantra - the cost of my lifestyle is about to reduce even further to a new all-time low, making it possible for me to work very few hours indeed on my ZHC to get by.
I need only work full time hours ONE week in the month - to pay my end-of-month outgoing bills. The rest of the time, I’m earning pocket money, not paying this outmoded concept of “Interest” since the collapse of bank rates following the 2008 crash happening a year after his death, which Beckman predicted would be caused by a housing bust - correct again.

17

commonrail:
What’s your point?

Here’s one for you: Do you think Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic should be bailed out, as he’s now requested?

Being both Left Wing on finance, and a rather purist “Capitalist”, I reckon Virgin should be thrown under the bus at the earliest opportunity, - to be made an example of! :smiling_imp:

If you want the big bucks not-to-share when the going is good - then you should bloody well go quietly into the night when the sky falls on your head!
I feel the same about Mike Ashley, despite not being against ZHC - just his way of weaponizing such contracts so that Staff always lose out…
The NHS form of ZHC for key medical staff - a LEFT wing version - happens to be the type I believe should be supported by the entire workforce.
Short of key workers? - £50ph paid. NO quibble.

That’s how ALL ZHC should be in my mind.

My POINT then is that I would like to see my fellow workforce prosper in these times, rather than succumb to things like “Trump Derangement Syndrome” or “Boris Bashing”, which gets us all nowhere.
The supreme Irony is that we tell ourselves “We didn’t vote Corbyn in because he was going to bust our economy on purpose”. Boris now seems to have done just that - and created the biggest opportunity for social change that this country has seen since WWII… Corbyn actually PREDICTED that there would be this huge swing, just before the election last year as well - and he was correct, but not in the way he would have liked it to go, of course… It was a swing RIGHT rather than Left in the end…

“Criticism” - gets us all nowhere then.

I’ve been told in my time “If you don’t have anything constructive to say, stay silent”.
Others - should consider treating me on that equal platform, because “not agreeing with me” demands a “better idea of your own”, rather than unreasonable critique, because you’ve decided to take a personal dislike to things I’ve said in the past.

“Heed or Ignore”.

I’m not a politician, after all. :neutral_face:

18

I just don’t understand you winseer.

Although I do find you interestly bizarre.

How come you don’t say “cocklick” anymore.

19

commonrail:
I just don’t understand you winseer…

You’re not alone. I can’t make any sense of his posts. Every thread seems to degenerate into some bizarre “any 5 from 7” rant and then Carryfast comes along and blames Winseer’s shift problems on Marxism, China taking over the world and finishes by reminding us how great America is. :confused:

20

At the beginning of the week the agency I’m with, the client was screaming for more drivers as the work had gone off the scale but the agency was unable to get more. At the end of the week the same client has laid us all off, this is due to the change to “click and collect” and home delivery only.