Long serving . .

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

UKtramp:

the maoster:
I did 20 years (give or take) with a North East tanker Co, 10 years as an employee followed by 10 years self employed. I then did 2 years at an infamous Lincolnshire recovery Co that felt like 22 years!

as an owner driver Moaster?

Nah, I had a number of vans doing European fast freight. I’d always wanted to go down the o/d route but after doing the maths figured that for reward versus profit it made more sense to use vans as opposed to lorries. Plus I was in a position to actually get paid to race and instruct others on motorcycle track days throughout Europe. Win win, living the dream. :smiley: :smiley:

22

18 year with me last employer, running my own business for the last couple of years, transport related but not behind the wheel or desk anymore.

As an employer " if you want loyalty, buy a dog" many a driver left and begged to come back, as green grass needed a lot more mowing.

Transport is not what it use to be, not from both sides, many drivers are worse, and so are many employers.
Respect is gone, and everybody is chasing the last penny.

Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent day, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

It will all end in tears, one way or another.

23

caledoniandream:
18 year with me last employer, running my own business for the last couple of years, transport related but not behind the wheel or desk anymore.

As an employer " if you want loyalty, buy a dog" many a driver left and begged to come back, as green grass needed a lot more mowing.

Transport is not what it use to be, not from both sides, many drivers are worse, and so are many employers.
Respect is gone, and everybody is chasing the last penny.

Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent pay, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

It will all end in tears, one way or another.

Good post. I wonder if Im guilty of looking at the past through rose tints? My first employer made a point that for 12 and a half hours youd work, but then book off and get yourself fed, watered (or whatever) and then a good sleep before work again. They didnt want people wedded to the job, they didnt ask you to go over your hours, etc. They were after drivers who were in it for the long haul, not after a high turnover of drivers who quit when they`re burnt out.
There are good bosses out there still, I know, but are there less of them?
Is it me being more knowledgeable about employers or me being more cynical?
Or just rosy specs?

24

29 yrs so far, the job used to be a dead man’s shoes job.The new starters now are lucky if they stay more than 3 yrs before moving on.

25

There were a lot of old hands at my old firm. One bloke retired at 70, and he’d been with them 49 years. Though the pay was terrible and many of the lorries were sheds, it was the most relaxed job I’ve ever had, and you could get away with murder.

26

Started current job in 1979, for a building material manufacturer with their own transport fleet. Their transport was outsourced in 2009, and we were TUPE’d a couple of times, along with the office staff, to two large, well-known hauliers, but doing exactly the same job.

I’ve therefore been delivering the same stuff for 38 years (I’ll get round to unloading it soon! :smiley: )

Still with the second haulier and contemplating retirement, so I see no point in changing.

27

3 years is about the limit for me, then i tend to get bored and move on to pastures new, yes, i do have a very short attention spa…

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28

caledoniandream:
18 year with me last employer, running my own business for the last couple of years, transport related but not behind the wheel or desk anymore.

As an employer " if you want loyalty, buy a dog" many a driver left and begged to come back, as green grass needed a lot more mowing.

Transport is not what it use to be, not from both sides, many drivers are worse, and so are many employers.
Respect is gone, and everybody is chasing the last penny.

Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent day, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

It will all end in tears, one way or another.

Those jobs where respect is mutual are out there, despite the best efforts of a small minority of ■■■■ takers on both sides of the desk to make it not so.
I’ve been lucky and fallen on me feet in own account work, and hoping to see my time out here, OA and those rare family owned firms are probably the last where the old values are to be found.
In some ways the ■■■■ takers on the driver’s side are an excellent addition to a company and should be welcomed with open arms, in very short order they remind the company that their core staff are bloody superb by comparison.

29

Dad done, I think, 40 years with the same company, Norfolk Haulage, Mayhew Freight and finally Turners, each buying the other out.

Was treated like ■■■■ towards the end and it got to two weeks prior to his 65th birthday when someone asked him his intentions for 65yrs1day. Don’t think they were ready to be told “sat at home with my feet up”.

Asked if he would go in “now and again” to assess drivers, once again they didn’t like the answer. :slight_smile:

30

rob22888:

UKtramp:

maga:
I’m not sure driving is the sort of job where people accumulate many years service with the same mob

Not now it isn’t

No because a lot of guys are usually looking for something that isn’t there.

If they are a day/night driver, they want short hours for big money & the hours they are doing are never sociable enough.
If they are a tramper they want the same + nights out, or max hours for even bigger money + nights out but never on a Friday, you have to be done at 2pm on Friday.
etc. etc.

Perfect jobs don’t exist, every driving job out there comes with a compromise & you can’t put a ■■■ paper between most anyway.

I’m not crazy about my current job but i’m fairy happy with the pay & hours. I reckon your generally better off with your feet under the table at a firm riding the rough & smooth, rather than job hopping all the time and forever being the new guy.

I’m quite content with my present job as I’ve managed to get a decent number for myself.
I’m the only driver on the firm that does the same job every week, 4 and a half days tramping, and it suits me.
I do not get pushed either as most of the others do, which is a bonus also, but that is of my own doing, setting my own pace and not reacting to attempts to put me under pressure…so everythings cool at my end.
It was always going to be a temporary move until something else turned up, so I spent the first 5 yrs there (of :sunglasses: trying to get back on firms based in Europe as an outbased driver at home again, (which I done for 3 different firms one Brit, one Dutch, one Belgian, since 1987 after jacking in being an owner driver since 82) but gave up looking when this opportunity came up, …funny how things go eh?

The jobs fine, it’s the co I aint too keen on :smiley: , …although my depot aint too bad compared to the others, to be fair.

The way I see it I have about 10yrs or so left in this game, so unless something drastically changes with my job, I reckon it will do me until then…but who knows.

31

caledoniandream:
Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent day, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

The thing is, it’s the employers have got what they wished for, casualisation.

It was recognised in the late 19th century that casualisation and “sweating” was a social evil, characterised by a culture amongst workers of insubordination, indiscipline, irregular availability, and low productivity, and actually relatively high wage rates.

Employers for their part were characterised by naked contempt for the workforce, low capital investment, low investment in skills, low reliability and inability to offer regular incomes, and so on.

Bosses derive most of their disciplinary power from supplying steady work on settled pay and conditions, and from wielding the ultimate threat of withdrawing work and disrupting that regularity if a worker’s behaviour is beyond the pale.

When pay and conditions are effectively up for negotiation every single day, when bosses have no stable and mutually understood policy and are simply constantly pushing the boundaries, when workers cannot settle and form the habit of daily regularity and personal relationships with bosses and coworkers (and of accepting rough with smooth), and are on a constant merry-go-round of different employers, it produces a culture of conflict and mutual contempt.

The worst sanction the employer has, dismissal, is regularly used anyway for reasons of fluctuating demand and no fault of the worker at all, so workers do not fear it as an exceptional measure - their wives and kids don’t either, because they are also accustomed to and adapted to regular disruption of income and habit that casualisation causes.

I can’t remember whether it was “In Place of Strife” or an earlier work which led to statutory minimum notice periods in the 60s, but the reason there was minimum notice on both sides was to try and stop workforces (employed on at-will contracts) downing tools and walking out at a moment’s notice in wildcat strikes and also stop employers from locking them out, because when those conditions prevail, everyone goes to work braced for a fight and braced to leave before the end of the day - they are mentally prepared for it - so that even minor provocations cause one side or the other to throw down the gauntlet.

32

Rjan:

caledoniandream:
Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent day, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

The thing is, it’s the employers have got what they wished for, casualisation.

It was recognised in the late 19th century that casualisation and “sweating” was a social evil, characterised by a culture amongst workers of insubordination, indiscipline, irregular availability, and low productivity, and actually relatively high wage rates.

Employers for their part were characterised by naked contempt for the workforce, low capital investment, low investment in skills, low reliability and inability to offer regular incomes, and so on.

Bosses derive most of their disciplinary power from supplying steady work on settled pay and conditions, and from wielding the ultimate threat of withdrawing work and disrupting that regularity if a worker’s behaviour is beyond the pale.

When pay and conditions are effectively up for negotiation every single day, when bosses have no stable and mutually understood policy and are simply constantly pushing the boundaries, when workers cannot settle and form the habit of daily regularity and personal relationships with bosses and coworkers (and of accepting rough with smooth), and are on a constant merry-go-round of different employers, it produces a culture of conflict and mutual contempt.

The worst sanction the employer has, dismissal, is regularly used anyway for reasons of fluctuating demand and no fault of the worker at all, so workers do not fear it as an exceptional measure - their wives and kids don’t either, because they are also accustomed to and adapted to regular disruption of income and habit that casualisation causes.

I can’t remember whether it was “In Place of Strife” or an earlier work which led to statutory minimum notice periods in the 60s, but the reason there was minimum notice on both sides was to try and stop workforces (employed on at-will contracts) downing tools and walking out at a moment’s notice in wildcat strikes and also stop employers from locking them out, because when those conditions prevail, everyone goes to work braced for a fight and braced to leave before the end of the day - they are mentally prepared for it - so that even minor provocations cause one side or the other to throw down the gauntlet.

I’m enjoying your posts Rjan, always interesting!

33

TiredAndEmotional:

Rjan:

caledoniandream:
Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent day, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

The thing is, it’s the employers hai … …tions prevail, everyone goes to work braced for a fight and braced to leave before the end of the day - they are mentally prepared for it - so that even minor provocations cause one side or the other to throw down the gauntlet.

I’m enjoying your posts Rjan, always interesting!

Plus one. Always good to follow up Rjans posts. Just been looking at the Dock Labour Board, Port Sunlight, the Winter of Discontent, the Quakers as Employers, etc etc. Labour relations seem to be the same as wars, we (mostly) never learn from the mistakes of our predecessors. Maybe thats why labour laws go in cycles, as we swing from one side to the other? A happy medium? Nah, we`re human, never happen.

34

Franglais:

TiredAndEmotional:

Rjan:

caledoniandream:
Years ago you wanted decent pay for a decent day, nowadays;
Employers want to pay minimum for a maximum days work
Employees want maximum pay for no work, and no input.

The thing is, it’s the employers hai … …tions prevail, everyone goes to work braced for a fight and braced to leave before the end of the day - they are mentally prepared for it - so that even minor provocations cause one side or the other to throw down the gauntlet.

I’m enjoying your posts Rjan, always interesting!

Plus one. Always good to follow up Rjans posts. Just been looking at the Dock Labour Board, Port Sunlight, the Winter of Discontent, the Quakers as Employers, etc etc. Labour relations seem to be the same as wars, we (mostly) never learn from the mistakes of our predecessors. Maybe thats why labour laws go in cycles, as we swing from one side to the other? A happy medium? Nah, we`re human, never happen.

Thank you :smiley:

I will say this though, you’d probably have to go back to the Regency era and before to find a time when “labour laws” - the established legal rights and regulatory protections enjoyed by working people - were last undergoing a downturn as they have since 1980.

The market economy went up and down, but the trend from the mid-19th century (when Charles Dickens was writing) was for workers to gain (fitfully and in a ratchet-like fashion) increasing workplace rights and protections.

Not for nothing that some statistics show that the last time workers’ wages actually lost real value, as they are doing at the moment, was the 1850s, and that conceals a bomb still coming down the line for younger workers in terms of educational and housing debt, the closure of generous pension schemes and the end of job security, increasing inequality of wages, the decay or abolition of all sorts of public services, and so on.

All of which conceal that real but small losses in the average of what workers are taking home in wages, are dwarfed by the loss of security of those wages (including the loss of paid apprenticeships, stable careers, and retirement incomes) over their lifetimes, and huge increases in their outgoings and commitments (like mortgages and rents that are 2, 3, or 4 times the size of 20 years ago).

35

Like Punchy, I’ve been working for a slave driver of a boss, this time for 26 years.

Longest serving driver, 25 years, though he did a bit of casual in the first year of me starting. Longest serving driver down South, 18 years, which is how long we’ve been open down there.

Most just stay and stay, those that leave usually do so in the first few months if they find the glamour of European is not what they thought, ie there is no glamour at Immingham docks at 2 a.m. :grimacing: Otherwise it’s a change in circumstances.

36

I started driving tankers for a firm in 1965. In 1976 the tanker side of the firm was taken over by a Cardiff company. In 1978 in was taken over again by Wincanton transport. It was taken over again a few years before I retired in 2008 by TDG. So that was 43 years continuous employment 27 of them with Wincanton.
After I left the job passed to Knob Strangler that well know French firm and today it is XPO…

37

Longest was 22 years, shortest 12 months. Also did 8 years with my first employer and 5 years with my last (and best) job, then made redundaunt at aged 52. :cry:

Pete.

38

15 years at strangeway , loved it regret leaving

39

I’ve been driving at the same employer for 15yrs since passing my test with them. The pay isn’t the best but it’s really easy work and I still enjoy it.

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40

malcolmgbell:
15 years at strangeway , loved it regret leaving

Never a back load on the laundry run :laughing: :laughing: