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A thank you to Brexiteers.

Badgers said:
WTF

www.independent.co.uk

Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

Exclusive: German driving licences issued before 1999 include entitlement to drive a small to medium-sized truck of up to 7.5 tonnes
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
Click to expand...

And they said Germans aren't funny.

"We were quite surprised,” he said. “I’m sure pay and conditions for HGV drivers have improved, but ultimately I have decided to carry on in my role at an investment bank. My wife has never driven anything larger than a Volvo, so she is also intending to decline the exciting opportunity.

“It is nice to know there are specialist jobs available here for us though after Brexit. We would never have been headhunted to drive a lorry if we’d gone back to Germany."
 
Badgers said:
WTF

www.independent.co.uk

Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

Exclusive: German driving licences issued before 1999 include entitlement to drive a small to medium-sized truck of up to 7.5 tonnes
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
Click to expand...

Lol. You've been suckered by the bollocks press headlines designed to get your juices flowing!

What has actually happened is that the DfT sent a mailout to all HGV licence holders hoping to coax some ex-HGV drivers with still valid licences back into the job. The letter clearly says "if you are no longer working in this sector we would like to take this opportunity to ask you to consider returning".

UK based Germans who have transferred their German licences to Brit ones got their C1 category transferred automatically because standard German licences still included it, even though British ones haven't since the 90s. Trouble is, the DVLA have no way of knowing what people's occupations are, so everyone (about a million people) with an HGV entitlement got them, including the aforementioned Germans. They weren't specifically targeted.

Good story though.
 
Last edited:
Spymaster said:
Trouble is, the DVLA have no way of knowing what people's occupations are, so everyone (about a million people) with an HGV entitlement got them, including the aforementioned Germans. They weren't specifically targeted.

Good story though.
Click to expand...

Independent story acknowledges this eventually.

The letter is part of the same mass mailout that has also asked ambulance drivers and paramedics to come and drive HGV vehicles. The Department of Transport has said that data protection rules meant they were unable to filter the results
 
Yossarian said:
Independent story acknowledges this eventually.

The letter is part of the same mass mailout that has also asked ambulance drivers and paramedics to come and drive HGV vehicles. The Department of Transport has said that data protection rules meant they were unable to filter the results
Click to expand...

Even that bit is mendacious tosh. They haven't "asked ambulance drivers and paramedics to come and drive HGVs". Some ambulance drivers received the letter on the same basis as the Germans. There’s no mention of them (or indeed any occupation) in the letter.
 
Spymaster said:
Even that bit is mendacious tosh. They haven't "asked ambulance drivers and paramedics to come and drive HGVs". Some ambulance drivers received the letter on the same basis as the Germans. There’s no mention of them in the letter.
Click to expand...
Quite right. How dare the press make derogatory statements like that about our Brexit Government, any insult to Johnson and his friends is an insult to all hard working leave voters.
 
its just a little bit funny thats all, that letter being posted to a million people, now, when its way too late, in case they might possibly come to the rescue. Absolute joke of an implementation of a massive change to the country. Entirely predictable.
 
My bro-in-law is a lorry driver. For £9.00 per hour, he was expected to work 60-70hour weeks, piss by the side of the road, eat in his cab. 2 months ago, he was given a payrise of an extra £100 a week. The current govt. is so utterly out of touch, they have no fucking clue. Where are all these foreign drivers going to live? Presumably, not a single minister has had to go through the humiliation of applying for some shit rental. Or perhaps the drivers can sleep in caravans in car-parks. No fucker is coming here to take up visas - this is a problem which has been decades in the making. Brexit and Covid simply excerbated a crappy situation where it costs £4K to get a HGV licence (just like the whole 'ticketing scam which has swept through construction and other skilled trades in the absence of any sort of investment and training right across the whole skilled labour sector). FE colleges closing, shitty adverts to 'learn to be a plumber in 3 weeks and earn £100K a year (as if) - a perfect storm of turning the UK into a shitty low-wage service sector, heritage/tourist concern. Lorry drivers have been leaving the industry in droves - and, as with the care sector, it's only now that a conflation of pandemic. short-term lack of investment (and the UK isn't an isolated case here) and the scooping up of profits by a parasite class of fincap scum, hedge-funders, rentiers, landlords and such. The care sector is also crisis because we are now in a phase of vulture capitalism and predatory practices to squeeze labour by the bollocks.
 
campanula said:
My bro-in-law is a lorry driver. For £9.00 per hour, he was expected to work 60-70hour weeks, piss by the side of the road, eat in his cab. 2 months ago, he was given a payrise of an extra £100 a week. The current govt. is so utterly out of touch, they have no fucking clue. Where are all these foreign drivers going to live? Presumably, not a single minister has had to go through the humiliation of applying for some shit rental. Or perhaps the drivers can sleep in caravans in car-parks. No fucker is coming here to take up visas - this is a problem which has been decades in the making. Brexit and Covid simply excerbated a crappy situation where it costs £4K to get a HGV licence (just like the whole 'ticketing scam which has swept through construction and other skilled trades in the absence of any sort of investment and training right across the whole skilled labour sector). FE colleges closing, shitty adverts to 'learn to be a plumber in 3 weeks and earn £100K a year (as if) - a perfect storm of turning the UK into a shitty low-wage service sector, heritage/tourist concern. Lorry drivers have been leaving the industry in droves - and, as with the care sector, it's only now that a conflation of pandemic. short-term lack of investment (and the UK isn't an isolated case here) and the scooping up of profits by a parasite class of fincap scum, hedge-funders, rentiers, landlords and such. The care sector is also crisis because we are now in a phase of vulture capitalism and predatory practices to squeeze labour by the bollocks.
Click to expand...
I wrote a lengthy post about my experiences as a carer and then deleted it, I think it might have something to do with the thread eh- ah well, but just wanted to say cheers for your sensible post on this thread and the food shortages one, spot on :)
 
campanula said:
My bro-in-law is a lorry driver. For £9.00 per hour, he was expected to work 60-70hour weeks, piss by the side of the road, eat in his cab. 2 months ago, he was given a payrise of an extra £100 a week. The current govt. is so utterly out of touch, they have no fucking clue. Where are all these foreign drivers going to live? Presumably, not a single minister has had to go through the humiliation of applying for some shit rental. Or perhaps the drivers can sleep in caravans in car-parks. No fucker is coming here to take up visas - this is a problem which has been decades in the making. Brexit and Covid simply excerbated a crappy situation where it costs £4K to get a HGV licence (just like the whole 'ticketing scam which has swept through construction and other skilled trades in the absence of any sort of investment and training right across the whole skilled labour sector). FE colleges closing, shitty adverts to 'learn to be a plumber in 3 weeks and earn £100K a year (as if) - a perfect storm of turning the UK into a shitty low-wage service sector, heritage/tourist concern. Lorry drivers have been leaving the industry in droves - and, as with the care sector, it's only now that a conflation of pandemic. short-term lack of investment (and the UK isn't an isolated case here) and the scooping up of profits by a parasite class of fincap scum, hedge-funders, rentiers, landlords and such. The care sector is also crisis because we are now in a phase of vulture capitalism and predatory practices to squeeze labour by the bollocks.
Click to expand...
Yes. This.
 
Spymaster said:
Even that bit is mendacious tosh. They haven't "asked ambulance drivers and paramedics to come and drive HGVs". Some ambulance drivers received the letter on the same basis as the Germans. There’s no mention of them (or indeed any occupation) in the letter.
Click to expand...
It's OK because the Telegraph have done the same story in pretty much the same way. So it's officially shit even if you voted leave.
 
campanula said:
My bro-in-law is a lorry driver. For £9.00 per hour, he was expected to work 60-70hour weeks, piss by the side of the road, eat in his cab. 2 months ago, he was given a payrise of an extra £100 a week. The current govt. is so utterly out of touch, they have no fucking clue. Where are all these foreign drivers going to live? Presumably, not a single minister has had to go through the humiliation of applying for some shit rental. Or perhaps the drivers can sleep in caravans in car-parks. No fucker is coming here to take up visas - this is a problem which has been decades in the making. Brexit and Covid simply excerbated a crappy situation where it costs £4K to get a HGV licence (just like the whole 'ticketing scam which has swept through construction and other skilled trades in the absence of any sort of investment and training right across the whole skilled labour sector). FE colleges closing, shitty adverts to 'learn to be a plumber in 3 weeks and earn £100K a year (as if) - a perfect storm of turning the UK into a shitty low-wage service sector, heritage/tourist concern. Lorry drivers have been leaving the industry in droves - and, as with the care sector, it's only now that a conflation of pandemic. short-term lack of investment (and the UK isn't an isolated case here) and the scooping up of profits by a parasite class of fincap scum, hedge-funders, rentiers, landlords and such. The care sector is also crisis because we are now in a phase of vulture capitalism and predatory practices to squeeze labour by the bollocks.
Click to expand...

Excellent post.

Quick query, "fincap"?
 
The panic of the past week, which recalled old memories (and myths) about the tumultuous late 1970s, was a long time coming. For many months, industry leaders across the economy have warned about chronic labor shortages — of truck drivers, yes, but also fruit pickers, meat processors, waiters and health care workers — disrupting supply chains and impeding businesses.
Click to expand...

From across the pond...

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Britain Is Heading Into a Nightmarish Winter (Published 2021)

A sudden convergence of crises has cast the country’s future in darkness.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Yossarian said:
And they said Germans aren't funny.

"We were quite surprised,” he said. “I’m sure pay and conditions for HGV drivers have improved, but ultimately I have decided to carry on in my role at an investment bank. My wife has never driven anything larger than a Volvo, so she is also intending to decline the exciting opportunity.

“It is nice to know there are specialist jobs available here for us though after Brexit. We would never have been headhunted to drive a lorry if we’d gone back to Germany."
Click to expand...
Germans might be funny but investment bankers definitely aren't.
 
Spymaster said:
Lol. You've been suckered by the bollocks press headlines designed to get your juices flowing!

What has actually happened is that the DfT sent a mailout to all HGV licence holders hoping to coax some ex-HGV drivers with still valid licences back into the job. The letter clearly says "if you are no longer working in this sector we would like to take this opportunity to ask you to consider returning".

UK based Germans who have transferred their German licences to Brit ones got their C1 category transferred automatically because standard German licences still included it, even though British ones haven't since the 90s. Trouble is, the DVLA have no way of knowing what people's occupations are, so everyone (about a million people) with an HGV entitlement got them, including the aforementioned Germans. They weren't specifically targeted.

Good story though.
Click to expand...

Still odd they are writing to people with C1 category on their licence, about HGV jobs, when a 7.5 tonne truck is certainly not a HGV.

And, where's my fucking letter? :mad:

Not that I would ever drive a HGV, I drove a 7.5 tonne truck once, and that scared the fucking shit out of me.
 
Badgers said:
From across the pond...

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Britain Is Heading Into a Nightmarish Winter (Published 2021)

A sudden convergence of crises has cast the country’s future in darkness.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...

Some good turns of phrase in there.


And, seeing the chance to recast their negligence as benevolence, they claimed their failure to act was because they wanted companies to pay British workers more, instead of relying on cheap foreign labor.

This alibi for inaction is unconvincing. In the Netherlands, for example, new legislation has improved the pay and working conditions for truck drivers. In Britain, conditions remain among the worst in Europe.
Click to expand...
 
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