Juddian:
I was on the cars then, so approx £32/34k, two weeks worth of work every week mind.
Ah time line, might have been on Kwik Save which was around £29k when i left to go back on the cars, so don’t quote me cos i can’t remember which years i changed jobs to be precise.
My best paid job in real terms i suppose was my first lucky break, i’d left general haulage and gone van driving on nights, shortly after they expanded night trunking and needed a few bodies so right time right place right licence, on my final year there around1990, maybe 91 when it came to an end with redundancy i was on target for £30k, though that pales when compared to Tolemans transporters who brought out those Iveco/Lohr mk5 12 car carriers around 87, drivers on them were knocking up a grand a week.
It all went pear shaped after 97 when Blair and his nulab disciples opened the floodgates and destroyed the working class of this country by unmeasured immigration, which has never stopped and won’t because we, the electorate, can’t help voting like turkeys for our very own Christmas by electing traitors, ironic really that labour, once the party of the working class, just completed the treachery that heath and thatcher started, and those smoothie social democrats masquerading as tories since have just carried on their work, but have also bankrupted our nation into the bargain.
We, the working class, will never see the good days again, as we the working class are only really wanted when there’s a war (of their making) on and they need cannon fodder, some things never change.
Ironic how the only two unions to recommend brexit were the two rail unions, whos members still enjoy better deals than almost every other blue collar workers, worth thinking about.
Sorry to drag politics into this, but they really are all the same, and they are the ones who have done this to us, i just wish people would stop believing them and voting for more of the same and then acting surprised when more of the same arrives the day after election , there’ll be proof of more treachery to come over the next 5 years if you look for independent news and avoid the BBC/chanel no4 propaganda channels, mark my words.
+1 on all that, you are correct, lib/lab/con are nothing more than a coalition they are all globalist shils, allowing the 3rd world to invade and ultimately destroy this country our culture and traditions, May will not deliver the brexit that 17.4 million people voted for last June, not a chance of that, yet many fools trust her and the tories
None of the parties will bar UKIP and they won’t ever get in.
If May does delay, and ultimately kick in the long grass, Brexit, she’ll deliver what 17.3 million people voted for.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb, voting on who to eat for lunch…
Dunno if delay is an option? 29th March 2019, were out. Any agreements not reached by that date mean we go onto WTA rates. Talks can only be extended by ALL Eu countries agreeing, and that is not likely. I wonder about the suggestion that there is a vote by Parliament or a Referendum to approve of any agreement before signing it? If Parliament or We say the agreement proposed isnt good enough, what then? Ill bet some would like to get out and go onto WTA as the price of not allowing any immigration, and others, voting the same way would want to remain? Sounds like the recipe for an even bigger ■■■■-up than the situation were already in. Interesting times indeed.
In 97 I was earning around £4.50 an hour for working in a cold store. 2 years later I joined Unilever at Trafford Park as a machine operator and was salaried at around £17k.(6-2,2-10,10-6)
It’s pretty sad really that 20 YEARS later I am only earning £28k
£300 per week in 1995 running out of Hull docks starting 6am, usually finishing around 5pm Mon-Fri. Home every night.
What is sad is in 2000 working for agencies I was getting paid £20/hr on bank holidays, triple time, yet the last time I worked one last year, 16 years later, it was £14.
From 1992 to 1997, I was taking home around £250 per week working Monday-Friday late lates with regular built-in overtime, and as little as £147 when “grounded”. Wages were very much going sideways for me during those years, and I suspect did for a lot of people, fed up with “lack of the feelgood factor” as it was described by Chancellor Kenneth Clarke at the time.
Come Labour’s 1997 victory, that I didn’t vote for - my disposable income increased rapidly, partly from the wages from 1997-2002 in particular rising faster than inflation, mostly due to “more overtime availability”
and partly due to the drop in my “personal inflation rate”. I am a betting man for example, and Gordon Brown abolished Betting duty. He also handed control of interest rates to the Bank of England, which in my mind has resulted more than anything else in the property market refusing to crash all these years since.
I never voted Labour, but I’m grateful to Gordon Brown’s tenure as Chancellor then. In my mind, it all went wrong for Labour when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. Ironically, that means the same as “When Tony Blair Left”. A man I’d never liked, and never voted for - and yet, the absence of him ended up making a LOT of us “worse off” in the long run. I think Blair continuing as PM with Brown continuing as Chancellor - would have either averted the 2008 financial crisis completely, or at least reduced the damage of it in a crowd-pleasing way.
If Gordon Brown had called a snap election in 2008 like Theresa May has in 2017, then I would have found myself voting Labour for the first time.
By 2010 though, I’d lost all confidence in Labour, with the wrong people in the wrong jobs in my mind.
So… by 2017, and I find that I still cannot bring myself to vote Labour, including on June 8th.
My first hgv job in 2000 paid £75 a day class2 skip lorry work. I earn quite a bit more than that now.
I’m in a location where there’s quite a lot of hgv work which helps keep wages competitive
Juddian:
I was on the cars then, so approx £32/34k, two weeks worth of work every week mind.
Ah time line, might have been on Kwik Save which was around £29k when i left to go back on the cars, so don’t quote me cos i can’t remember which years i changed jobs to be precise.
My best paid job in real terms i suppose was my first lucky break, i’d left general haulage and gone van driving on nights, shortly after they expanded night trunking and needed a few bodies so right time right place right licence, on my final year there around1990, maybe 91 when it came to an end with redundancy i was on target for £30k, though that pales when compared to Tolemans transporters who brought out those Iveco/Lohr mk5 12 car carriers around 87, drivers on them were knocking up a grand a week.
It all went pear shaped after 97 when Blair and his nulab disciples opened the floodgates and destroyed the working class of this country by unmeasured immigration, which has never stopped and won’t because we, the electorate, can’t help voting like turkeys for our very own Christmas by electing traitors, ironic really that labour, once the party of the working class, just completed the treachery that heath and thatcher started, and those smoothie social democrats masquerading as tories since have just carried on their work, but have also bankrupted our nation into the bargain.
We, the working class, will never see the good days again, as we the working class are only really wanted when there’s a war (of their making) on and they need cannon fodder, some things never change.
Ironic how the only two unions to recommend brexit were the two rail unions, whos members still enjoy better deals than almost every other blue collar workers, worth thinking about.
Sorry to drag politics into this, but they really are all the same, and they are the ones who have done this to us, i just wish people would stop believing them and voting for more of the same and then acting surprised when more of the same arrives the day after election , there’ll be proof of more treachery to come over the next 5 years if you look for independent news and avoid the BBC/chanel no4 propaganda channels, mark my words.
Great post, and it seems more and more people are really getting sick of globalisation, free trade and the virtual monopoly that policy has with mainstream politics. The only difference being the wording of the manifesto, the results seem to be the same.
The question why is it us old ■■■■■ shouting down the system and not the youth, maybe after experiencing first hand what free trade and globalisation really means for the working person we’ve had enough, the young are still naive enough to believe the false promises, or the education system is doing a better job of brainwashing than we thought.
muckles:
The question why is it us old ■■■■■ shouting down the system and not the youth, maybe after experiencing first hand what free trade and globalisation really means for the working person we’ve had enough, the young are still naive enough to believe the false promises, or the education system is doing a better job of brainwashing than we thought.
My thoughts on that are that they know no different, and not really experienced or seen the erosion within the system the older people have.
I get it that globalization means we have to be more competitive and streamlined if we want to compete, but I also think those in power have sold us down the river whilst keeping themselves protected. I don’t have a clue who to vote for in the upcoming elections, as I can’t see that any of them represent the working class. Maybe Wolfie Smith if he’s running…
Power to the people!
Oh, and I earned 38k LTD in 1997 working almost part time, but not driving trucks…
97 is twenty years ago. I can remember what I earned in 2002 so fifteen years ago. In Lincs I was on £6.50 hour plus £13 a night out. Was about £360 in hand. 15 years later the wages per hour in the area have gone up just over a pound
weeto:
You know when a driver says he was earning more per hour 20 years ago, was he really?? I do remember getting about £140 for a 40 hour week plus over time and nights out in the early 90s
1997 was the year that labours pre=election pledge for a minimum wage.
The Transport and General Workers Union is calling for a minimum wage of £4.38 an hour although it believes any statutory minimum limit above £4 would have a “major effect” on boosting the wages of “many thousands” of drivers. Many drivers are earning around £3.50 an hour, the union estimates.
from cm 1997
Doesn’t matter what you earned, what matters is what that bought you!
comparing the fgures with the Consumer Prices Index is probably the best comparison.
£25,000 now would have been the same as £14,580 in 1997.
£4.38 an hour in 1997 would be equivalent to £7.51 today
£3.50 an hour in 1997 would be equivalent to £6.00 today
Juddian:
It all went pear shaped after 97 when Blair and his nulab disciples opened the floodgates and destroyed the working class of this country by unmeasured immigration, .
.
Just to make one point, the mass East European migration didn’t start til 2004. In 1997 we were still reaping the benefits of john Majors peace dividend, this resulted in 1000’s of squaddies being made redundant, and from what I was seeing, being given an HGV licence and told to sod off and make your way in society. So Me, as a career trucker, for want of a better description was having my wages suppressed by those who had either, been at the Embassy siege or spent their army career painting curb stones in Germany Still they painted those curb stones for Queen and Country you know
Agreed that, when in 2004 the Labour government signed us into the social chapter, 48hrs working week and all that, they let all the East Europeans in aswell, coincidence my arse
Cant remember My exact rate of pay in 1997, but around £5 an for 8 hours, and time and half after that, double on Sundays and bank hols, would seem to ring a few bells. What I do remember, is I got married in 1996, and My tax code rose by about 40%, and when the one eyed thief Brown stole it a few years later, it was 702 for the year, and went down to about 460 for the following year
Haulage rates played a large part regarding wages, especially in the construction side of haulage. At Tilcon we were on cracking money compared to other drivers on general haulage etc, overtime, loading/sheeting time,slow running payment etc. Tilcon, Blue Circle and Tarmac were the driving jobs folk in the area drivers wanted and there were long waiting lists. With the companies having their own vehicles the rates were kept up so that OD’s had decent rates as well. Then the transport side was all sold off and it became ‘open season’ regarding rates and things steadily deteriorated. I was paid on earnings so knew the rate per jobs and a lot were crap but work was work so you had to take it or sit at home, an OD with one lorry could do that sometimes but not when he ran two so also employed a driver. Looking at my old pay book from 2000 the rate from Cromford to Chesterfield (a bloody awful run!) was less per tonne than the bus fare and things didn’t alter much especially with fuel prices rising rapidly, the gaffers could only pay drivers extra if they were getting extra themselves and it wasn’t happening. Nowt to do with Eastern Europeans, just quarries etc not giving realistic rates for the work. Things may have improved drastically now of course?
, there’ll be proof of more treachery to come over the next 5 years if you look for independent news and avoid the BBC/chanel no4 propaganda channels, mark my words.
