Everything you buy, rent, or pay for is priced at what the market will bear, except wages, particularly wages for non-unionised labour.
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Yesterday?..Liverpool 2011 was that?
So, if the money I gave to the RBL for my poppy this year was stolen, you would say I sponsored the lives of thieves.
We should pay lorry drivers 800 smackeroons for working on Boxing Day too; after all, they’re the cornerstone of commerce and industry. The bright ones aren’t, of course. 
I agree about the industry being at the bottom of the pit when it comes to hours allowed (or expected) to work, general pay and conditions, and the lack of basic facilities for drivers.
I personally have experienced as you say, good salary and good conditions, when I was made redundant due to (good) firms closing down.
So then I ended up where I am now, not so good in terms of pay, conditions, not to mention the way that you are looked upon.
Good driving jobs around here are like hens teeth, and are all sewn up, mostly general haulage cack available, I am in the best available of a bad bunch.
You criticise looking after no 1…what is the alternative exactly?
Drivers will never stick together, and chuck in the mix the non Union aspect, and that is the state of play.
Not only that but nobody complains about ■■■■ takes in these type of firms, well apart from 1 or 2, the rest complain amongst themselves, but never to who they should be complainng to.
Then we have the array of clowns and yes men, doing stuff like coming in the yard (unpaid) to sleep on a Sunday afternoon, to leave midnight, so they can …miss the traffic 
.
The irony is they get paid an hourly rate for sitting in that traffic, and no extra fpr getting the job done quicker.
Then the ones who spend literally thousands on raising the profile of firms trucks…then wonder why we don’t get a pay raise.
I could go on about all this stuff, and never run out…and this is what we are up against.
So basically since coming here I took the initiative to look after numero uno, and f.everybody else, …which tbh has done ok for me so far.
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Meanwhile, the government’s new ‘Value for Money tsar’ will be paid a daily rate of £950, Rachel Reeves announced in the budget. So for David Goldstone, every day is Boxing Day! Couldn’t make it up could you? This story is reported in the i-paper, BTW.
Road transport by its nature is based on flexibility for customer service which means flexibility in drivers hours.
Train drivers also have varying start times and shift times especially freight sector.
However the difference is that train drivers view themselves as a cut above doing warehouse labouring as part of a 15 hour shift and train operators don’t generally want to waste their drivers’ time and wage costs employing them for 15 hours of that day.
Train operators also expect to use red diesel to subsidise those wage costs.
While limiting road transport to laughable productivity limits when it is actually moving freight anywhere.
The reason why train drivers are so well looked after is all about politics not union solidarity.
TGWU and Unite happily apply double standards regarding truck drivers to protect the ASLEF and RMT elite.
You can strike for equal tc’s and c’s as train drivers but hauling at best around 25t payload a few miles up the road, subject to road fuel duty + VAT, isn’t going to win customers or be economically viable.
Not that old chestnut, Carryfast. Only you were too fragile to fulfill complete role of driver and accept responsibility for the security of the load.
Everyone else here accepted all aspects of their various roles, not just the sit on your arse and look our of the window part.
Is it not true that the unusual strength of ASLEF is that it is confined to one small section of the working community. Drivers and Firemen (not the ones who put fires out, the ones that, used to, light them up and keep them going.
So no problems arising between members with differing problems.
Lorry drivers on the other hand had one giant union which sounds like a good thing until, that is, their greatest enemies were in the same bloody union, had a completely opposite point of view and, crucially, were altogether in one spot rather than pounding lonely roads day and night after day and night.
Even URTU (The United Road Transport Union) the last one I was ever a member of, had light van delivery and warehousemen amongst its membership, so not a complete absence of conflicting interests.
Road transport v rail is by definition a conflict of interest between the respective unions and road transport unions have more loyalty politically to what’s good for rail not road Which is why road fuel taxation ultimately comes out of truck drivers’ wages and road transport unions are happy to sell out their members to extra hours of ‘other duties’.
Are we moaning about the difference between the job and reward of a train driver v a truck driver or not ?.
Either way no one going to pay a truck driver for up to 15 hours at train driver rates to haul around 25t of payload a few miles up the road at road fuel rates of tax and no train driver would add all those extra hours to their working driving day to do ‘other duties’ like warehouse labouring at any rate of pay.TGWU etc bovine excrement.
URTU actually IS a waste of time.
I tried for help a few years ago with something.
Packed it in after that.
Not saying it was their fault, but I was denied access to a rep at one point by the company because they didn’t recognise the union. Said I should have been in the one that was recognised, the SMSTMS or whatever it was, management and scientific staffs,. the famous Clive Jenkins’ old stamping grounds.
Luckily my case came to the ears of the shop steward in the dyehouse and, outraged that someone should be denied representation, he insisted, and was thus with me. The first thing he did was insist on something else, and that was to have the person who had accused me thrown off the judging panel. 
No case to answer, thank you to the dyers’ and whatevers’ union.
Are unions a waste of time
Some posts seem to think so, others not so
Its back to basics in the job, if it suits you your happy, if it doesn’t your inclined to look after yourself if possible.
In memory its always been like that, you can be lucky or unlucky, you can fall on your feet being in the right place at the right time, you can also be in the wrong places many times.
Which maybe points to an attitude of some?
Too self centred to join a union and work collectively, but would rather fight any and all, and end up worse off for it.
Not to mention the posts of some who say both that unions are a good thing and all should join, and also to look out for numero uno and stuff the rest.
I grew up with a strong union ethic including defying my contract as a trainee regarding taking part in industrial action against my employer at the time.For which I was actually commended by both management and the union.
However what’s that got to do with the conflict of interest between rail unions v road transport unions.
To the point where road transport unions will sell out the membership regarding terms and conditions regarding duties, hours, wages, pensions, sick pay/medical retirement by comparison etc etc.
Also a fuel taxation and productivety regime which ultimately hits drivers’ pay.
The truth is what’s good for road is bad for rail.Road transport operators simply don’t have the scope to provide rail type perks even if they wanted to.It’s more likely that they would close down.
Aye me !
So what is the alternative in this real world situation of which I have already pointed out?
Join the yes men?
Take it up the arse with no resistance?
Be some sort of servile borg?
…Because if YOU make a stand, there aint a backbone between them to back you if it gets heated…fact.
Things are different today mate since you worked on the council, and that type of employment is a whole different ball game to this general haul crock of sh.
So in the meantime, I’ll stick with the ‘numero uno’ scenario and just laugh and/'or tut and shake my head at thr rest of em.
Cheers.
I have been a member of a union once and to be fair they did save my job. If i got a direct job with a company i would gladly join again however as an agency bod im always told i cant join.
The issue with unions as i see it is you need a strong leader that is prepared to stand upto the management/boss rather then swallow all the micromanaged directives that just turn the simplest job into a nightmare. Even with that the members have to agree and that is the next downfall as others have pointed out.
To me, the secret is if you are in a union that is dedicated to your particular section of the workforce, and no other, like ASLEF, you are onto a winner because the whole membership has the same common view and goal.
Another famous example was the Mineworkers, just miners, and that union only ultimately failed because it was led by a megolomaniac who denied democratic voting rights to a large section of its membership. Something we will never know is whether or not the strike of '84 would have happened if all the membership had had a vote. I am convinced personally that the Notts miners (and others), who had a vote themselves not to strike, would have respected the result, whatever it was, if there had been a general vote allowed. But there wasn’t one and Scargill ruined a perfectly effective union.
Lorry drivers, who presumably only do the job because they like working alone (there are other reasons), are thus disadvantaged by that very independant spirit and have never had a completely dedicated union to represent them.
Can always put it about that you are part of THE ROYS GROUP in addition to any union. , sounds like youre now not to be messed with? actually i happen to know roy [of the roys group] he has 2 employees that i know of so hardly a group. Nontheless before i knew that i held him in some esteem, has BIG ROY his number plate but not tall nor well built . An ex employee told me hed seen him cry buckets when he slipped and hit his face on a shop window