Hauliers and logistic companies need to change the way they do business if it is stop haemorrhaging lorry drivers. Who is looking out for lorry drivers in this day and age? Often I am told it is the Road Haulage Association (RHA). Like a cheap suit, the RHA has been all over television and radio during the past 18 months, with its leader Richard Burnett and wingman Rod McKenzie issuing proclamations of woe. They have been;
My view is that hauliers have only themselves to blame. Transport is cheap and they are the ones who made it cheap. Rates are cut to the bone. The industry is oversubscribed so if Two-a-Penny Transport won’t do the work, Cheaper-than-chips Haulage will. Hauliers have fought each other tooth and nail in a race to the bottom and only now, when there's a crisis, does the business model show its faults. At no point has the RHA questioned hauliers over the practice of operating paper-thin profit margins, or still using ‘month-end and 45 days’ payment terms to subbies but factoring invoices for early payment, or trimming tax-deductible benefits, or using credit to plug holes in operational costs, or franchise haulage agreements where the primary source of work (the franchiser) starves its abundant but third-party fleet (the franchisees) of work without compensation. I’ll say it again; transport is cheap and hauliers are the ones who made it cheap. I know it’s not advisable to bite the hand that feeds you but if you are going to act as the voice of the road transport industry on television and radio you cannot cherry-pick the debates that suit you best. Lorry drivers are walking away from the industry in their hundreds and hauliers are the ones responsible for that. Working conditions, demands on the driver, long hours with poor pay, and lack of support is what creates so many vacancies. Employers need to look again, and not simply ‘carry on trucking’ because school-leavers are not interested in the social, physical and mental demands of the job. Work patterns needs to change; a decent wage, four-on-four-off, shorter journeys, larger and smarter warehousing with wider consolidation are all areas that can improve the job. No, it’s not cheap but transport shouldn’t be cheap. It should be properly funded and properly policed, and that cost paid for by the customers and clientele who needs their goods moved from A-to-B. It would create the sort of environment that would retain older disillusioned drivers and attract younger people too.
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AuthorAging proletariat with face, teeth and body to prove it. Archives
August 2021
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