What shortage?
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Irecently read an article on driver shortages with interest and felt I just had to respond: there is no shortage.
I have been in this industry for 25 years or more and in that time I have seen wages reduced and conditions of employment worsen.
I say we do not have a shortage of drivers: what we do have is a shortage of people willing to work long hours for wages which, if anything, are lower than they were six years ago.
There are thousands of people out there with the necessary driving licences; ex professional drivers with good experience who are just not willing to continue in the profession when they can find alternative employment which pays them as much money for fewer hours.
I suggest to the industry that we stop percentage payments, mileage bonuses (which are, after all, supposedly illegal) etc, and pay drivers a decent hourly wage. Then we will see people coming back into the industry The type of work now being undertaken by haulage firms has changed quite significantly: more and more firms are now involved in container deliveries and delivering to the distribution centres of large retail concerns. The hours wasted waiting to load or unload on these jobs hurts profitability.
Indeed, if the drivers were to be paid properly for their time then the jobs would be run at a loss.
Rather than the Government giving extra support to the RHDTC, it should look at encouraging drivers back into the industry by legislating for shorter working hours, taking us back to the eight-hour driving day and banning all forms of payment which are not based on hourly pay.
John Widdowson, Retford, Notts.