not-bono-ever
meh
oh good. no supper at the Ivy then.
Is Brexit actually going to happen?
- Thread starter Kaka Tim
- Start date
Ask your Mum to explain to you what the article in the Guardian was suggesting.
Invest more in infrastructure? Well, duh.
So you'll be voting Labour next election I take it then?
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
I do know a bit about transport. The 350 trucks a day running parts from all over Europe to Swindon will nowadays be mostly east European drivers earning about £200pw living out in their trucks for months at a time. The big multinational freight forwarding firms might be Dutch/German/French but the truck units in front of the trailers will have Romainian numberplates or Hungarian although those Hungarian trucks might well be driven by Ukranian or Russian nationals. Many of these drivers will be set impossible deadlines & will be exceeding ther legal driving hours. They will be constantly fatigued & at risk of accident.
It wasn't always this way. Back before the customs union in the early 90s it worked like this. Parts for Vauxhall for example were loaded into trailers at the German factories & driven to Holland by Dutch drivers. The trailers were dropped at the port in Holland then shipped overnight to Harwich. They were customs cleared when they arrived in Harwich & then delivered the next day by transport companies based locally in Harwich driven by UK drivers. The system worked perfectly. The deliveries were timed & delivered on time.
There is no reason why that could not work again. The complaints by the car industry are neoliberal bollocks. Their parts delivery system now relies on poorly paid & exploited eastern European drivers who are often dangerously fatigued.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
So is the difference today that the drivers stay on the ferries with the trucks and so end up working longer hours?
Presumably clearance is quicker under the customs union regime (no checking?) and so they can increase profits. But if we weren't in a customs union, would the drivers be any less exploited? Wouldn't they just sit on the trucks for longer due the increased checks?
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
While we are in the customs union goods move from Frankfurt to Swindon as easily as from Birmingham to Swindon. Load is collected. Driver has delivery notes & drives straight to delivery point. Tbf all this could be automated if customs clearance is tequired. The truck could drive from Frankfurt to Calais drive off the ferry at Dover & straight to Swindon as it does now. There could be numberplate recognition to check that clearance was done vat paid & the truck could proceed without stopping. This obviously requires the IT systems to be up & running & operate reliably when we leave the customs union.
Yes the eastern European drivers will still be exploited. I doubt we would return to German & UK drivers driving the trucks because Romainians are cheaper. Some might hope that foreign reg trucks would be banned from UK soil with British jobs for British drivers but it ain't going to happen. There is always a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK & there are thousands of eastern Europeans living in the UK driving for UK transport companies & it is fair to say if they all went home the supermarket shelves would be empty.
Certainly customs clearance on goods from EU will add hugely to costs & it will create plenty of new public & private sector jobs in customs clearance who need recruiting & training asap.
Also worth pointing out plenty of trailers are sent unaccompanied on the longer sea crossings Holland/Harwich Holland/Hull for example. The trucks that collect them from UK port might be UK reg trucks with east European drivers or they could be foreign reg trucks allowed by EU rules to work within the UK. Among UK drivers pulling trailers off the dock is about the least desirable HGV jobs going, worst paid, worst hours. UK firms struggle to find drivers for this sort of work so many of the drivers are east European nationals.
Yes the eastern European drivers will still be exploited. I doubt we would return to German & UK drivers driving the trucks because Romainians are cheaper. Some might hope that foreign reg trucks would be banned from UK soil with British jobs for British drivers but it ain't going to happen. There is always a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK & there are thousands of eastern Europeans living in the UK driving for UK transport companies & it is fair to say if they all went home the supermarket shelves would be empty.
Certainly customs clearance on goods from EU will add hugely to costs & it will create plenty of new public & private sector jobs in customs clearance who need recruiting & training asap.
Also worth pointing out plenty of trailers are sent unaccompanied on the longer sea crossings Holland/Harwich Holland/Hull for example. The trucks that collect them from UK port might be UK reg trucks with east European drivers or they could be foreign reg trucks allowed by EU rules to work within the UK. Among UK drivers pulling trailers off the dock is about the least desirable HGV jobs going, worst paid, worst hours. UK firms struggle to find drivers for this sort of work so many of the drivers are east European nationals.
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Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
So the way to stop exploitation of drivers is strict rules about length of shifts and strict enforcement of those rules. Not leaving the Customs Union.
Raheem
Well-Known Member
The EU has regulations about minimum pay, driving hours and breaks for lorry drivers. The problem is enforcement.
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
There always has been strict rules for drivers hours & rest periods. The UK was the country that enforced these rules most strongly. The tories desire to shrink the state resulted in virtually no roadside enforcement nowadays. Fraud is rife with foreign drivers having more than one digi tacho card. The odd one that is caught in the UK is parked up for 24hrs & fined. Fines are just regarded as running costs by the big international hauliers. Usually the way a foreign driver is caught exceeding legal hours is after another horrendous motorway accident often caused by falling asleep at the wheel.
UK transport companies have always been the best regulated in Europe. Dutch & Danish drivers were always the ones that ran bent as fuck. Ironically when east Europe was still communist their truck drivers that drove in the west ran dead legal. Now all the old commie state run transport companies have been replaced by massive private companies like Waberers from Hungary that run 1000s of trucks all over Europe.
UK transport companies have always been the best regulated in Europe. Dutch & Danish drivers were always the ones that ran bent as fuck. Ironically when east Europe was still communist their truck drivers that drove in the west ran dead legal. Now all the old commie state run transport companies have been replaced by massive private companies like Waberers from Hungary that run 1000s of trucks all over Europe.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I can imagine.
I guess there won't be an enforcement problem if there are no longer any regulations as a result of leaving the EU.
hot air baboon
Well-Known Member
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
The drivers hours regulations have always existed in the UK & will continue to exist after brexit. All EU countries have always had their own system of enforcement & punishment. UK based transport companies have to keep tacho records which are examined & so on. UK transport firms working within the UK do generally stick to the rules. A UK HGV licence holder risks suspension of licence if they are nicked for running over their hours. Other countries penalties are generally much less severe. The main culprits of driving on UK roads far in excess of legal hours are eastern Europeans who are driving in & out of the UK.
not-bono-ever
meh
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not-bono-ever
meh
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not-bono-ever
meh
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not-bono-ever
meh
and thats enough from me
back to the discussion
back to the discussion
sealion
Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginitive
Perhaps paying them more than £40 a day would be a way forward.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
and fines- this goes for trans european LWB van deliveries as well. I knew one driver who was taken to a weighbridge and found more than wanting. The company 'generously' fronted the fine then deducted the cost of that from his wages in instalments. Anything involving legality or license in employment and the fallout from misdeeds wrt tends to focus on fucking the worker AND the company for money. Only one of the parties can afford it and the other usually cannot
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Yes drivers should be paid more than that. It’s less than the minimum wage. Are you suggesting UK drivers are paid that? If so, it’s illegal. If it’s East European drivers then how will our leaving the EU help?
Raheem
Well-Known Member
Some of them are entitled to the UK minimum wage under EU law, even if perhaps not all of those that are actually get it. Presumably, they will lost that right after Brexit.
sealion
Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginitive
It won't but will improve wages over here. Companies are having to offer higher rates because of eu workers leaving the uk. Its already happening here in Sussex. I firmly believe that the eu only exists to make money for big companies and themselves by providing cheap labour.
not-bono-ever
meh
the romanian and UKR drivers corral their wagons at Rotterdam Europort sometimes when waiting for their ride to the UK. for days sometimes until their slot comes up. They catch local rabbits and cook them on open fires at night. I dont think these lads are on any kind of wage + o/n allowance.
/ anecdote
/ anecdote
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
presumably if we had stayed in the EU they would have tightened up the sort of sharp practise that shafts semi and unskilled labour in differing ways throughout the nascent economic polity and introduced a pay and conditions agreement european wide while fostering the growth of EU wide trade unions. That was so on the cards.
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
Wages for truck drivers working for UK based transport firms driving UK reg trucks in the UK are reasonable. For example take home pay including expenses for Felixtowe based container drivers working all over UK can be £700pw albeit for 9hr driving days spread over 15hr working days & sleeping in truck on motorway services all week. Drivers do run legal hours. The are many eastern Europeans living in the UK working for these companies & many have made their lives in the UK.
The separate issue is drivers working from their own countries earning wages which are normal in say, Romania/Hungary but a fraction of the wages earned by truck drivers from UK/Holland/France etc. Waberers for example is a Hungarian based transport company running 1000s of trucks. The drivers do not go home to Hungary after every trip they stay out for weeks running continuously between western European countries. Waberers also employs non EU nationals Ukranians etc legally working from Hungary so they then are working all over EU on explotitive wages.
Other large western European transport companies particularly Dutch have opened companies in name only in Poland, Romania etc so they can employ Poles etc on wages from those countries driving Polish reg trucks but running in the liveries of the Dutch companies working from Holland to all European destinations. Notice the trucks of large Dutch companies like Wolter Koops & Heisterkamp mostly have Polish number plates.
Smaller east European transport companies will subcontract to these larger firms. Yes, you will see groups of truck parked up in Rotterdam & in the UK waiting for loads. The drivers are cooking communal meals. There are totally inadequate truck parking facilities in the UK. In Kent for example locals complain of drivers parked in laybys for days with no facilities hanging around getting pissed leaving piles of rubbish & shit.
The brexiteers might indicate that all this could change when we leave the EU. It is certainly feasible. We could ban foreign trucks from UK soil.All trailers could be shipped unaccompanied to be hauled by UK reg trucks in the UK but really it ain't going to happen. I'm sure things will continue much as now. The is always a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK. The take home pay can be reasonable but most people don't want 15hr days & 3am starts.
The separate issue is drivers working from their own countries earning wages which are normal in say, Romania/Hungary but a fraction of the wages earned by truck drivers from UK/Holland/France etc. Waberers for example is a Hungarian based transport company running 1000s of trucks. The drivers do not go home to Hungary after every trip they stay out for weeks running continuously between western European countries. Waberers also employs non EU nationals Ukranians etc legally working from Hungary so they then are working all over EU on explotitive wages.
Other large western European transport companies particularly Dutch have opened companies in name only in Poland, Romania etc so they can employ Poles etc on wages from those countries driving Polish reg trucks but running in the liveries of the Dutch companies working from Holland to all European destinations. Notice the trucks of large Dutch companies like Wolter Koops & Heisterkamp mostly have Polish number plates.
Smaller east European transport companies will subcontract to these larger firms. Yes, you will see groups of truck parked up in Rotterdam & in the UK waiting for loads. The drivers are cooking communal meals. There are totally inadequate truck parking facilities in the UK. In Kent for example locals complain of drivers parked in laybys for days with no facilities hanging around getting pissed leaving piles of rubbish & shit.
The brexiteers might indicate that all this could change when we leave the EU. It is certainly feasible. We could ban foreign trucks from UK soil.All trailers could be shipped unaccompanied to be hauled by UK reg trucks in the UK but really it ain't going to happen. I'm sure things will continue much as now. The is always a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK. The take home pay can be reasonable but most people don't want 15hr days & 3am starts.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I hope conditions do improve for workers. But as the Tories have just defeated an amendment which would have guaranteed no loss of employment rights post-Brexit, I think I can see which way *they’re* going.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Did the pre-customs union arrangement allow for genuine just-in-time logistics? Or did that come in with the CU?
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