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Post by spartacus on Sept 1, 2021 15:41:51 GMT
There's no need to bring foreign workers in, there are already thousands of qualified HGV drivers here who never drive lorries. Many people passed their HGV test and got a job driving a lorry but soon realised for various reasons the job wasn't really for them. This is usually due to the excessive hours they are expected to work, usually 60-70 hours per week including compulsory weekend work and start times which mean they have no social or family life. A lot of these already qualified drivers would probably put up with this situation if they felt the pay made all the negative points that come with the job worthwhile but due mainly to the huge influx of east European drivers over the last twenty years the wages have hardly risen to the point where workers who have more rules, regulations and responsibilities than almost any other industry have been paid no more than people working in Tesco's or McDonald's and the only solution is for drivers and workers in many other undesirable jobs to be payed what they are actually worth in terms of how important they are to keeping the country functioning. And as for putting more goods on the rail network, just about all transport runs on what is called a "just in time" basis whereby it needs to be moved fast and you can't get stuff from one side of the country to a final destination the other side of the country in three or four hours on a train. Apparently there were around 323,000 employed HGV drivers in the Uk in 2018. Prior to Brexit only 54,000 of those were EEA nationals down to 35,000 now who pretty much all will have settled status under the Withdrawal Agreement. Less than 20% of the workforce doesn't strike me as a 'huge influx' of foreigners coming here to drive our trucks, steal our women etc. Surely poor working conditions are not the fault of the truckers themselves if demand for drivers has exceeded supply for so many years. With or without foreign workers there would still be a big shortage of drivers so it seems daft to not want to grant visas quickly to experienced foreign workers when there are plenty of jobs out there for all. Seems to me it is just as important to encourage those Eastern European drivers to apply for visas and come back here as it is to encourage Brits. Hopefully the present shortage will see conditions improve for drivers (along with many other workers) now employers find they are having to change ingrained working practices to attract new people. The transport industry has been saying there is a driver shortage for at least ten years and they have managed to plug the gaps with EU workers until now. If Brexit is really one of the major reasons for the current situation (I don't think it is) then it seems to be having a positive effect for many low paid workers who are now seeing their pay rise for the first time in years. There are various reasons EU workers decided not to continue working in the UK including the fact wages have risen right across Europe and the government IR35 clampdown which has made the UK a much less attractive place to work. I don't think you'll find anyone in transport saying EU nationals have come here and taken their jobs but current evidence clearly shows wages have been suppressed for years otherwise drivers wouldn't suddenly have had up to 50% pay rises in the last few weeks when they hadn't previously seen hardly any increase in the last decade.
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lesj
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Post by lesj on Sept 27, 2021 9:43:40 GMT
According to what I have heard, there is a serious lorry driver shortage, meaning a delay in getting goods into the shops In the past when the country has been in similar situations with other vital services, the Army has been called in to help . Why as yet have the Army not been called in on this occasion ? It seems the government are now considering bringing in the army to deal with this lorry drivers shortage As you will see I suggested this four weeks ago. If only they had acted then . As usual they are doing too little too late www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html
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Mark of Carnage
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Post by Mark of Carnage on Sept 27, 2021 10:47:10 GMT
According to what I have heard, there is a serious lorry driver shortage, meaning a delay in getting goods into the shops In the past when the country has been in similar situations with other vital services, the Army has been called in to help . Why as yet have the Army not been called in on this occasion ? It seems the government are now considering bringing in the army to deal with this lorry drivers shortage As you will see I suggested this four weeks ago. If only they had acted then . As usual they are doing too little too late www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.htmlA token gesture that will reduce the 104,000 HGV driver deficit by only a few hundred (that we might have to spare from our enormous army )for the short time it will be in place. I think this solution is aimed less at resolving the shortfall and more at quelling the panic buying at service stations. With rising inflation, food and energy prices, ending of covid aid packages such as the £20 pw UC uplift that will have a devastating impact on the income of mostly working households accounting for around 25% of the British population I think the HGV driver shortage is only part of a wider picture that is going to throw a lot of people into poverty and debt over the coming winter. Awful situation we find ourselves in and it is incredible that the government are now bringing to an end all the various covid aid packages when the economic affects of covid are still having a major impact on so many people's lives. They could at the very least extend these packages until April 2022 to get people through the what is clearly going to be harsh winter.
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Post by champair79 on Sept 27, 2021 10:55:21 GMT
Just to point out - the fuel shortages are being caused by panic buying. HGV tanker drivers need an extra accreditation due to the hazardous contents they transport and as far as I’m aware, are not (massively) short of qualified drivers.
The longer term shortages disrupting supply chains IS being caused by driver shortages. The temporary visas and the Army may help paper over the cracks and ‘save Christmas’ as the media like to put it. However, it won’t solve the 90,000 driver shortage the industry has been banging on about for a long time. The army can help but have people forgotten how small our army is now? They still have to remain mobilised and train. At most they may be able to supply a thousand or two drivers. They’re already driving Scottish ambulances.
I lay the blame for this squarely at the government for not sorting this out a decade ago despite predictions the shortage was only going to get worse (that’s in spite of Brexit and COVID).
I also lay the blame with the media encouraging the panic buying. They don’t care one jot about the health of the country - only to print sensationalist headlines to sell papers. The general public are sheep. It’s sad to say but the same thing happens time after time. It must be human psyche in a big chunk of the population that causes panic buying.
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lesj
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Post by lesj on Sept 27, 2021 11:34:48 GMT
Champair you are quite right in both your areas of blame.
If we as the general public could see the way driver shortage has been going for some time, then the government must have known well before us and should have acted long ago. I agree that bringing in the Army is only going to give limited help , but it could have been done earlier
I also agree that the media as usual have caused the panic buying and don't care about the general public.
As you say,they are only interested in selling newspapers
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Mark of Carnage
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Post by Mark of Carnage on Sept 28, 2021 6:09:18 GMT
The BBC are saying they have been told that: 'An initial 75 military drivers will be put on standby, with up to 150, and the same number of support staff, available if needed.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58713770Lorry driver crisis solved.
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andyrt
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Post by andyrt on Sept 28, 2021 9:21:32 GMT
Champair you are quite right in both your areas of blame. If we as the general public could see the way driver shortage has been going for some time, then the government must have known well before us and should have acted long ago. I agree that bringing in the Army is only going to give limited help , but it could have been done earlier I also agree that the media as usual have caused the panic buying and don't care about the general public. As you say,they are only interested in selling newspapers Nobody forces people to read the newspapers and respond to the mass media.
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lesj
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Post by lesj on Sept 28, 2021 10:03:00 GMT
Nobody forces people to panic buy but they do !
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Post by Andrewlang on Sept 28, 2021 10:03:25 GMT
No, of course not but they do and the media is manipulative and insidious. I find that pretty dangerous and would tend to blame the source ahead of the stupidity of the 'victims'.
Anyway, not much to say about the fuel shortages. I need some for my generator but I'm not sure what the protocol is when there are mile long queues and you're on foot with a Jerry can 🤷♂️
Andrew
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lesj
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Post by lesj on Sept 28, 2021 10:21:34 GMT
The problem is, when people are panic buying it is virtually impossible to tell who is panic buying & who is queuing up for petrol because they genuinely need it
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Denton
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Post by Denton on Sept 28, 2021 12:04:26 GMT
The problem is, when people are panic buying it is virtually impossible to tell who is panic buying & who is queuing up for petrol because they genuinely need it I don't think it is, I went last night and you had people in their 60s+ filling jerry cans (despite a 35 pound limit) and lots of housewife types driving eratically even though they've just filled up and making out like they've just stolen something. Everyone else just seemed stressed\tired which I imagine are the people who actually need it
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Post by im110onthem11 on Sept 28, 2021 21:13:12 GMT
As someone who has and still is working in the industry heres some facts for everyone. 30 yrs ago you would struggle to get onto a decent firm, unless someone died or you were recommended by someone already working there you wouldn't get a start. Standards were high and people cared. Average age 30+ on my first job when I left the army. Lots of smaller family firms. Slowly but surely larger firms crept in and strangled the rates. Good firms started to use cheaper labour from EU in the early days to help cash flow and try to keep going. Standards starting dropping. Big company's like supermarkets and petrol providers stopped having there own fleets of trucks and outsourced transport to other company's. Standards dropped even further. If you don't want to do the job we can get someone else to do it became a phrase heard all to often! Kids started going to university and not going into manual jobs. Fast forward to now and average age on my firm is 55. We have a 72 Yr old driving. You are penalised for everything you do. You work flat out up against it for 60+ hours a week. It's come back to bite a lot of firms in the backside and drivers now have a choice who to work for. I came off the road 3 years ago and you could pay me 100k a year and I wouldn't go back behind the wheel out of choice. We need to improve attitudes towards hgv drivers and get kids back working manual jobs and not look down on them for it. If we don't in 10yrs time we really will be in trouble.
Ps please turn of Facebook.
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Post by champair79 on Sept 28, 2021 21:29:58 GMT
An initial 75 military drivers will be put on standby, with up to 150, and the same number of support staff, available if needed.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58713770Lorry driver crisis solved. Laughable. but not entirely unexpected as our army (and armed forces in general) are stretched anyway. I deliver and collect vehicles for a second job. Today I was driving around London. I only saw 2 petrol stations with fuel and the queues were enormous and gridlocking the local areas. Within an hour of the tanker arriving, the forecourt would likely have to close again due to lack of fuel. It will take weeks to replenish stocks. The only positive was that the M25 was comparatively empty compared to a normal weekday. The M23 was dead! As for what the previous poster posted - I entirely agree with you. Not everyone can or wants to be managers or computer programmers. Schools forget that a lot of the more traditional jobs still need doing. Unfortunately there is no pride or goodwill left and wages are derisory. I think this is the downside of entrenched capitalism exhausting supplies of cheap labour. I predict a lot more bumps in the road as the country starts suffering a baby shortage and a rapidly ageing population. We seem to be sleepwalking into further disasters without any solid plan. That’s without considering the COVID fallout, Brexit and climate change. I’m not Greta’s biggest fan but she definitely has a point about the current ‘leaders’. They use fancy buzzwords to make their subordinates think that they’re doing a good job but they never actually tackle the problems that lie ahead. Everything seems to be reactive, avoiding blame and about milking as much from the cow before retiring on millions (see Tony Blair, David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron etc). All generations have challenges but I really struggle to be optimistic for the future. The U’s are my one source of escapism from reality.
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Post by richmead on Sept 29, 2021 4:59:57 GMT
im110onthem11 -
A very good summary. I think it’s hard to explain to people not in the industry exactly what it’s like. Regulators threaten fines at every opportunity. Mindless red tape. The DVSA is self funded and so issues fines to drivers and firms at the drop of a hat. The only industry more heavily regulated than the haulage industry is the nuclear industry. And they expect lower paid workers to navigate some of this regulation..
Absolutely nobody in there right mind would now choose to be a lorry driver if they weren’t already.
Very good point about wages also.
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