Hi Guys
Class 2 - Driver 5 years
Class 1 - One Week !!!
Our company was taken by a big logistics company and we were told terms and conditions stay the same,
So I relocated for the Class 1 position or face being laid off… (Luv the job - Reversing - Well !!!)
Anyway
I work longer hours have to off load myself with a fork life but still on Class 2 wages - Will my wages ever go up !
I wish that the above posts could become required reading for newbees.There is a glut of drivers at a period when there is less need for haulage due to the recession etc.The army are laying off squaddies with a C+E licence and there are a lot of police and fire brigade personnel who do driving on the side during their many days off.A lot of people are being hood winked into paying for a vocational licence.
One day, maybe One day, it may just dawn on you all what is going on and why. Until that day, you deserve all you get and you only have yourselves to blame for your collective ignorance. 
So Carryfast, instead of blaming the Governments of the World, how exactly would high wages for life, including pensions work exactly?
As I see it if the 1st generation earn $100, the second generation $150 etc etc, by the time the third generation start earning $200 the pension costs of the previous (still living) retirees of will mean that wage and pension costs combined will be $450 per employee.
That’s a lot of money to find, so whatever the workers are making will have to have its price raised, therefore devaluing the wages/pension. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul and it doesn’t work.
Look at Ford, who you regard as the champion of paying the workforce enough money to buy the cars they build. It worked well…until the pension costs eroded all the profits of the cars…as I said, it’s a pyramid scheme!
It came to the point that production was moved away from Detroit (for all the big three) into non union states or over the border into Mexico. That didn’t do the UAW a lot of good long term, unless I’m missing something?
The answer to the problem of low wages in transport doesn’t exist. The job is easy, it doesn’t require any special skills, other than driving, which is not too difficult. Granted, not everyone could drive a lorry, but many people can. Old timer skills such as route planning, load securement, using common sense or initiative are mostly surplus to requirements now. Everything is done to ‘company policy’
So a driver with 40yrs experience offers nothing more than someone with the ink still wet on their licence to a ‘logistics provider’
In the Global Free Market Economy we UK citizens are inferior to the rest of the world because we have less kids than third worlders, less years to live than asians, and less money to spend than people that have never worked.
The only way to stop the rot is a cull - this will be a major war, epedemic, or famine - none of which have become “obsolete” in what they do, just because they’ve not happened here for a while.
In other words, truckers will be on top dollar again when there’s hardly any of us left.
Anyone on here trucking during the years 1953-65?
They should have experienced what effect WWII had on ‘employment prospects’ and ‘wages’ first hand.
I’ve picked that year range, because the earlier than 1953 scenario would be distorted by rationing.
So in summary, it’s a race to the bottom then? Learn another trade or be prepared to drive for no more than £6.19/hr in the future. Oh well, I guess one must make hay whilst the sun shines then 
.
Rob K:
So in summary, it’s a race to the bottom then?
Yes.
Everything is going to plan as designed by the architects of our future.
Rob K:
Learn another trade or be prepared to drive for no more than £6.19/hr in the future.
There are those who are working tirelessly behind the scenes, and have been for a long time now, in an attempt to reverse this trend of “Wage Slavery”.
Their biggest obstacle is the “Corporate Media” and citizen/worker ignorance of the facts, which you will never learn about if you don’t make the effort to go looking for them.
Until then, trousers to the floor and bend over.
Solly.
I know exactly where you are leaning and i agree completely.
Until people get away from listening to watching and reading the propaganda and learn to really think for themselves they will die in ignorance under constant surveillance in a strange land thats barely recognisable now, Christ knows what it will be like after another 20 years led by traitors.
Solly:
Rob K:
So in summary, it’s a race to the bottom then?Yes.
Everything is going to plan as designed by the architects of our future.
Rob K:
Learn another trade or be prepared to drive for no more than £6.19/hr in the future.There are those who are working tirelessly behind the scenes, and have been for a long time now, in an attempt to reverse this trend of “Wage Slavery”.
Their biggest obstacle is the “Corporate Media” and citizen/worker ignorance of the facts, which you will never learn about if you don’t make the effort to go looking for them.
Until then, trousers to the floor and bend over.
Truth be known Solly, I am actually an avid follower of the Zeitgeist series of vids and on the whole do live my life with my eyes wide open. I’m very anti-establishment and anti-authority; always have been. As others have said, the “writing” for this happening with the rates has been on the wall for a long time now but truth to be told I didn’t expect it to start having an impact on my own life as quick as it has. Okay - technically it hasn’t had any impact on me YET as clients are still happy to pay what I charge, but for how much longer…
“They” seem to be getting quite good at kicking that can even further down the road which, on a personal and selfish level suits me just fine at the moment, but it’s not going to last and the longer they delay the inevitable the bigger the fall out is going to be imho. 
. But we’re getting way off topic now.
Juddian.
As you say, MSM, especially, that which I refer to as the “Corporate Media”, which most of it is nowadays, along with the “Education System”, is an effective tool and powerful weapon in the “Wealthy/Political Elite” propaganda machinery, and is used specifically to prevent individual thinking, as you rightly point out.
If people were to take your excellent advice and stay away from it then those problems you point out may just be nullified.
Until then? Same old, same old. “Spread them. No need to part the cheeks, we can manage without your help as we’ve always done, thank you”.
Rob K:
… As others have said, the “writing” for this happening with the rates has been on the wall for a long time now but truth to be told I didn’t expect it to start having an impact on my own life as quick as it has. Okay - technically it hasn’t had any impact on me YET as clients are still happy to pay what I charge, but for how much longer…
I completely understand what you say…Rob…but what is happening with the “Rates” is not accidental. It is happening thro’ deliberate design, and it isn’t just affecting the individual haulier. It reaches further. It affects every living being on the planet. So you aint alone there mate.
So what do we do to change things?
Without withholding labour (I.e striking or hauliers in general refusing to work for pennies) I honestly don’t know.
From a large transport firms point of view they are happy(ish) with the current rates because if you run two trucks that make £5 a day profit you think it’s crap. If you run a thousand you think it’s ok. Unfortunately we all know of a fair few that run a large fleet.
This in turn cascades down to drivers. Large firms started paying less. Smaller firms followed.
I can’t see it going lower from a drivers point of view purely cos of minimum wage legislation which it pains me to say a fair few drivers are bloody close too.
IMO, as with any other problem, understanding why the problem exists, how it arose, and in instances like this, what was it designed to achieve, and the effects it has, is key to forming an honest opinion on how to solve it.
I agree with…kjw21…This, along with other present day problems aren’t going to be solved by selective strike action, or telling the customer to F…O. 
It’s going to take something bigger.
When insurers start refusing to pay out for smashed up trucks, the firms employing all the second-rate drivers will be culled by natural selection as they should.
Smashed up truck doesn’t get replaced when there’s no one left to pay for it you see. 
newmercman:
So Carryfast, instead of blaming the Governments of the World, how exactly would high wages for life, including pensions work exactly?As I see it if the 1st generation earn $100, the second generation $150 etc etc, by the time the third generation start earning $200 the pension costs of the previous (still living) retirees of will mean that wage and pension costs combined will be $450 per employee.
That’s a lot of money to find, so whatever the workers are making will have to have its price raised, therefore devaluing the wages/pension. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul and it doesn’t work.
Look at Ford, who you regard as the champion of paying the workforce enough money to buy the cars they build. It worked well…until the pension costs eroded all the profits of the cars…as I said, it’s a pyramid scheme!
It came to the point that production was moved away from Detroit (for all the big three) into non union states or over the border into Mexico. That didn’t do the UAW a lot of good long term, unless I’m missing something?
The answer to the problem of low wages in transport doesn’t exist. The job is easy, it doesn’t require any special skills, other than driving, which is not too difficult. Granted, not everyone could drive a lorry, but many people can. Old timer skills such as route planning, load securement, using common sense or initiative are mostly surplus to requirements now. Everything is done to ‘company policy’
So a driver with 40yrs experience offers nothing more than someone with the ink still wet on their licence to a ‘logistics provider’
Blimey nmm the irony of what you’re saying is unbelievable considering that you’ve left the mess here to work in ( what remains of ) that North American economy which those Ford workers in the UAW amongst others built for themselves which is obviously already sinking and isn’t going to survive as they knew it in the long term assuming that those with your ideas are allowed to keep running the show.IE your whole reasoning for being there is actually dependent on the last line of defence in the form of protection of the North American road transport industry from free market competition with the Mexican one which is of course ( rightly ) the policy of what remains of the North American union movement but paradoxically you believe in an ideology that opposes it. 
I’m betting that you’d have to rethink your economic situation there ‘if’/when the North American road transport market is opened up to the Mexicans in the form of unlimited cabotage operations throughout the NAFTA countries and the North American labour market as a whole is subject to an open door immigration policy for Mexican immigration.In which your argument seems to me to be based on one of turkeys voting for Christmas.Just as in the case of all those working class voters for the Thatcherite and Reaganite cause at the end of the 1970’s.
As for driving a truck for a living the idea of guvnors spending a pound,in the case of buying and maintaining automated gearboxes etc etc,to save themselves a penny in labour costs for decent drivers,let alone the idea of reducing incomes to the level where no one can afford to be able to afford to consume the products which industry is turning out,and eventually making a large part of the workforce redundant anyway in favour of robots,says everything about the fact that your ideas,as I said,will just mean that the whole capitalist system,and obviously all those economies which are dependent on it,will destroy itself.Bearing in mind that there are plenty of other jobs that have been de skilled or made less labour intensive than previously.
In which case the issue of pension provision will be the last problem which people will need to worry about although even that is totally dependent on the incomes which workers can earn during their working years.It’s just that such a suicidal collapse in the ecomic system will probably mean that many people and their families would freeze,starve,or die of some medical condition that they won’t be able to afford to have cured,long before their retirement age.
Therefore your whole argument seems to me to be one of turkeys voting for christmas just as all those working class voters for the Thatcherite and Reaganite cause did at the end of the 1970’s.As they say be careful what you wish for.
However ‘if’ you’re right then train drivers would obviously be facing exactly the same issues as truck drivers are even at this point in time.But no surprise thay aren’t,including their retirement provision,and the reason for that is that they’ve got a much stronger union ethic than truck drivers generally have. 
Forgive my digression also but,
newmercman:
Here’s something that Carryfast appears to conveniently forget. Pensions…Where is that money going to come from?…
It shouldn’t be a problem. Although. This next statement is going to create a lot of head-in-hands reaction… guaranteed!.
Shock horror! Hello! The “Money” supply is limitless. It’s a veritable “Bottomless pit”.
Don’t believe it? No?
Then sit back, release heads from hands and try to work out where all those £billions have come from in the past?
HTH.
Solly:
Forgive my digression also but,newmercman:
Here’s something that Carryfast appears to conveniently forget. Pensions…Where is that money going to come from?…
It shouldn’t be a problem. Although. This next statement is going to create a lot of head-in-hands reaction… guaranteed!.
Shock horror! Hello! The “Money” supply is limitless. It’s a veritable “Bottomless pit”.
Don’t believe it? No?
Then sit back, release heads from hands and try to work out where all those £billions have come from in the past?
HTH.
Solly,
Never a truer word said in Jest!
Maybe when rioting starts in the streets when the middle class and twitter users are turly affected something will happen, but alas by then it will all be too late! 
Maybe it’ll all turn out for the good and we’ll become a monetary free society a bit like Star Trek 
Or more then likely it’ll turn into 21 days later and we’ll all be eating ourselves, yep that’s the reality coming for me and you…whoops
C
Rob K:
So in summary, it’s a race to the bottom then?
Rob, be grateful man, you are ahead of most of us young un’s and can remember the good old days. Make that hay while the sun shines. It was good while it lasted weren’t it
C
its same with any trade 5yrs or so ago plumbers round here was on 300quid a day now struggling to get 100quid a day because the media smashed in with all these training courses same with all trades .
without the 2yrs exsperince some say inpossible there just aint trying enough i aint got the 2yrs but there is some companys out there that will try take ■■■■ i still do 700 take home most weeks max my cards out but majority of day sit twiddling my thumbs , no rdc places or messing about swapping motors gaffers have done the job no there onions and happy to have beer after work with you i certanitly fell on my feet and i do get looked after with the sundays booking 15hrs while spend 12 of them twiddling my thumbs .
those that are willing to work for penuats are fools to them self and will only drive there own wages down if your good at your job and good graffter not a moaning ■■■■■ then you should get job most places jobs wont come find you if you think its out of your reach driving for said company you may well be supprised i certanitly was less than 2yrs and drie 8wheel tractor units with some intresting loads and trailers that have taken time to do training etc so dont be fooled thinking your only worth £6ph
Carryfast, I’m not for one minute suggesting that the free market is a perfect system, but it’s the one I have to work within, so I do the best I can under the circumstances. I would do the same under a union environment.
Solly, I think I know where you’re going. Inflation is the root of all monetary evils, there is no need for it, the only reason it exists is so the rich get richer and so the government can take more of our money to squander and line their own nest.
Carryfast, before you start, I’m not changing my mind about militant unions, especially in the BL fiasco. However the governments, the bankers and big business have completely [zb]ed the world economy.
Look at how media is force feeding things to move attention away from the real issues we face. Take the current anti islam propoganda, it has a lot of people excited, yet what is far more dangerous than a few mad muslims is the fact that multinational conglomerates are poisoning us with our food so they can make more money. This and and a million other things that will have a profound effect on the human race is conveniently swept under the carpet. Carpet that the conglomerates have paid for. The Police, under instructions from above, are allowing muslim only areas to further stir up public opinion so that they continue to get away with it.
The sad fact is that the only way to change things will be to take over the current establishment and to do that we need leaders, those leaders will expect a larger share of the pie and the cycle will start all over again with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.