For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868676
This is simply the “free market” at work, though of course we can’t allow a level of freedom that gets us to the position where drivers are more or less guaranteed to fall asleep at the wheel :roll:

We no longer plan strategically in any realistic sense and we don’t value or train personnel anymore, that went away when some cretin in a business school invented the term “Human Resources “ which ironically dehumanised the workforce overnight.

We need to get back to thinking about value before cost and frankly politicians and business schools are the core of a problem not a solution.
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By kanga
#1868689
johnm wrote:This is simply the “free market” at work, though of course we can’t allow a level of freedom that gets us to the position where drivers are more or less guaranteed to fall asleep at the wheel :roll:

...


[as this is in the GA Forum, a swerve back to a bit of aviation content .. longish :oops: ]

In my last few years (of >40) as an Air Cadet instructor, a number of trends came visibly together:

a. Stations hosting Air Cadet Camps could no longer provide drivers and coaches/minibuses to move Cadets around as required to complete the Camp programme, on and off the airfield.

b. Some would hire in minibuses, but Cadet staff had to provide drivers who had to have appropriate permissions on their civil licences AND (on some Stations, to drive on airfield roads) pass a military minibus driving test with a MT Section Examiner. Obviously, this took Staff away from their often intense Camp tasks.

c. Some Stations required this to be retaken even if the driver already had a generic military test pass from elsewhere (as I did). But MT Section was not open until Monday morning, and Cadets arrived and left on a Saturday, so movement on Sat-Sun was challenging, especially on Stations where Cadet accommodation was (literally) miles from Airmens' Mess, too far for Cadets to march for meals several times a day.

d. Cadet units were therefore encouraged to bring their own unit minibuses (which many had), to Camp, with Cadets on board, rather than (or as well as) chartering coaches to bring most Cadets and equipment. Often these were long journeys, such as (from Gloucestershire) St Mawgan, Valley, Coltishall, ..

e. so (for sound fatigue reasons) two Staff drivers were needed on each minibus, as well, possibly, as the Staff needed as supervisors on the chartered coaches.

f. but only the older (and increasingly getting older and fewer) Staff had by default minibus permissions on their civilian driving licences; so younger Staff had to be encouraged to train for and take the minibus test. In some Counties (including Gloucestershire) to take school-age children in minibuses required a regular retest with an Examiner assigned by Shire Hall and a basic medical with an assigned Nurse*. Both these cost both the Unit and the young Staffer time and money.

* The Shire Hall Nurse was happy that my recently completed CAA Class 2 Medical sufficed, saving both me and her bother :thumright:

g. Also, some younger Staff (especially teachers, of whom there are many in the Air Cadet movement) were reluctant to take on this training, as they did not want to become one of those on whom their schools would call to drive school minibuses on extracurricular or evening/weekend occasions (sports, theatres, field trips ..). thereby exposing them to career-limiting or -ending and even criminal court consequences in the event of any mishap.

Upshot: driving Air Cadets on minibuses was becoming the preserve of fewer, older Staffers, or contracted out to fewer, older professionals. I gather that driving larger PSVs and HGVs maybe reflecting similar trends, and this has suddenly become visible in the 'free market'.

[By contrast, for the first Camp which I staffed (1972, IIRC): Cadets and Staff had Rail Warrants from our local Station (requiring a slightly fraught change of train/platform at Birmingham New Street, which on a summer Saturday at midday was full of small people in RAF hairy blue battledress with adults making sure that all their dozy charges stayed together and didn't join the wrong group by mistake!). RAF 'buses with RAF drivers met the Cadets at the railway station closest to the RAF base. Transport in, around and from Camp was provided entirely by RAF personnel. Some was, by modern safety standards in retrospect, somewhat fraught: no seat belts, 'crew' minibuses, or totally seatless backs of military trucks - which the Cadets usually enjoyed! ]
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By Bald Sparrow
#1868693
I am going to risk saying that the situation is a little better in the USA.

I haven't been near the cab of an HGV in the UK for many years but in the US, the owner/driver of a sleeper tractor unit can be totally self contained with all facilities in the sleeper cab, even a shower.

Surely the HGV driver situation is the tip of the iceberg following Brexit added to a lack of young people coming into any jobs that are low paid, hard work. If we had a shipbuilding industry or a mining industry, I expect they would be suffering the same problem trying to find people from the UK willing to get dirty and working hard.

Light Aviation won’t have any engineers soon due to this problem. Unlike HGV driving, no-one will care about light aviation.
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By RisePilot
#1868741
kanga wrote: saving both me and her bother


I fear Kanga's account has been hacked; Mods please investigate.

The real Kanga would have used proper sentence structure and said "her brother and me".
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By TLRippon
#1868743
Genghis the Engineer wrote:Supply and demand 'innit !

Seriously, I gather from a lot of recent discussions on other social media that HGV driving jobs attract around £12/hr, and many drivers are working 60+ hours per week. In the meantime the airline industry is seriously in the doldrums. So around £35k.pa is similar to a first officer on a budget airline, or a full time flying instructor.

It's well established that the whole world presently has a serious shortage of goods drivers, driven in part by the massive increase in use of home deliveries due to Covid. In Britain Brexit and the consequent reduced supply of cheap foreign labour has also contributed.

So yes, I think that at the very least being an HGV driver is far more available and secure work than flying an Airbus, pretty much anywhere in the world. The scarcity can only also drive the wages up.

Best of luck to anybody who can keep body and soul together this way. I always used to advice people shooting for professional pilot licences to train as a chef or lifeguard as a backup, I shall change that advice to getting an HGV licence!

G


Please for gods sake tell me where full time flying instructors get £35k per annum, I didn’t know there was that much money in the world. I sometimes go to work in a white shirt in case the call from Tesco comes in.
By Chris10
#1868802
My late paternal grandfather was a lorry driver for a large brewery in the west London suburbs for about thirty years, starting from the late 50's. He started as a loader/driver's mate then progressed to driving. Since this was in the days of what I suppose could be termed "paternal capitalism", he was well looked after. He was given the following:

Decent salary, well above what would now be the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation.
A very good non-contributory pension scheme (which I think was a "defined benefit" scheme).
Restaurant-quality meals from the workplace canteen (can't remember if they were free or heavily subsidised), these were also available on a takeaway basis for drivers.
Membership of the company sports and social club, some of the facilities of which were used for the 1948 Olympic Games.
After a decade or so of service, subsidised rent of what could be described as the company's version of a council house, he was later offered the right to buy at a reduced rate.
Fairly cheap used executive cars. The company cars used by the executives/management were sold at an auction only open to employees once the cars had been replaced with a newer model.
Lastly, a complimentary bottle of the company's finest, every day.

I can't believe how much T&Cs have been eroded since then. The conditions of service that my grandfather would have enjoyed were likely amongst the best due to the fact his employer was a very large corporation, even so it's still shocking really.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868809
I think all business schools should be shut down and nobody with an MBA should be in charge of anything :twisted:
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By Flyingfemme
#1868815
johnm wrote:I think all business schools should be shut down and nobody with an MBA should be in charge of anything :twisted:

Or at least ban accountants from board positions.......
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868821
We're not innocent in this although perhaps our offence is indirect - our pensions demand investment returns and started expecting startup-level returns from all businesses. That and always buying the cheapest on offer - Amazon, etc.
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By Paultheparaglider
#1868831
Flyingfemme wrote:
johnm wrote:I think all business schools should be shut down and nobody with an MBA should be in charge of anything :twisted:

Or at least ban accountants from board positions.......


Jeez. You both must really hate people like me who have both an MBA and a professional accountancy qualification.

Fortunately, I have thick skin. Must be from my time as an air cadet having to wear that hairy uniform that @kanga mentions above. :wink:
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By kanga
#1868837
Flyingfemme wrote:
johnm wrote:I think all business schools should be shut down and nobody with an MBA should be in charge of anything :twisted:

Or at least ban accountants from board positions.......


but might there be a case for having people with an audit background as CFOs ?
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868840
I remember the joy of a start up in a major conglomerate where I was operations director. Our finance director summed up his job thus at an early board meeting
“You lot need to figure out how much cash we need and then I have to go and find it!”

My jaundiced view comes from collisions with major consultancy/accounting houses on large scale projects, especially in the public sector......
By avtur3
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1869118
Miscellaneous wrote:
... My take on your post is that you may be a little biased. I have never driven for a living and have limited experience and knowledge of the job, however the little experience I do have does not reflect yours. Sure at the bottom end, van delivery drivers wages, are/were hovering around the minimum wage, however for Class 3 and up I think you would be hard stretched to find any significant number of drivers on minimum wage over, say, the last 15yrs. ...


With respect I think you may be out of touch with reality .... I can assure you that until very recently the agency rate for HGV, including Class 1, was often minimum wage, I can tell you that I have driven HGV 1 for minimum wage because that was the going rate in the South Manchester area. I'm lucky I was doing it for fun, but sadly this is real life for so many people. In very recent times the boot is on the other foot, rates have gone up, I have had many cells form agencies I have previously been registered with almost begging me to work for them.

But there is still the matter of driver welfare facilities, by your own comment you have never driven for a living, I have to tell you that all too often welfare conditions for HGV drivers are dreadful, can you imagine arriving at destination with a load to be dropped at a retail distribution centre and being told that you cannot use the toilets facilities, that is real, that is how it is.

I've worked both ends of the spectrum, I've worked as an HGV driver for a blue chip oil company, brilliant pay, brilliant conditions on our own sites. I've also worked, more recently, and just for the fun of it, as an agency driver, and you are treated worse than something on the bottom of your shoe. That is the real world, I am not biased, I am simply telling you the truth, which is actually rather unpalatable.

I'm not suggesting that toilets be available whenever a driver reaches their 4.5 hours .... I'm simply saying that toilets should be available somewhere where drivers can park up, until you have driven a 40 footer and have full bladder then I suspect you will not understand the point I am making.
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