A PIRATE REPLIES
Page 60
Page 61
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Friday morning a tipper pirate telephoned COMMERCIAL MOTOR. asked for the opportunity to reply to the attack made on pirates by ie House, a campaigner against illegal operation in last week's issue. pirate was interviewed by E. JAMES MILLEN.
Millen: You telephoned me on Friday. You say that you are forced to operate illegally but that-you have no wish to do so. Why do you have to be a pirate?
Pirate: I have to be a pirate because it is people like Mr. House and his colleagues that stop us from operating legally. They use a form of restrictive practice. Any time anybody such as myself applies for a B licence or attempts to work legally we are blocked by these people. We have two ways of working legally. We can apply for our own B licence which is a general B licence for rubbish, muck, materials, etc., on which we are guaranteed objections all the way round. Or we can operate on a C licence, supplying our own materials to contractors—but again all the gravel firms have their own haulage arrangements and they refuse to deal with us. In other words, we cannot operate legally with materials because they will not sell them to us. We cannot operate legally with rubbish or muck because we are opposed by them when we make our applications for B licences.
Millen: You have at some time applied for a licence?
Pirate: I applied for a B licence but didn't carry it through because it seemed to me that the whole business was futile and I took instead a short-term B licence for motorway work with the idea that if I had enough short-term B licences it would give me stronger ammunition for my own application for a general B licence at a later date. I can only say, with the B licence, what put me off was talking to reputable firms which I asked for help—even past employers. I was told emphatically that it was a waste of my time, because you have these people automatically opposing you.
Millen: It would be argued that there was no need for anyone else to come in and do work in that area, because it was already sufficiently well covered.
Pirate: That is it, that is what they say, "the work is well covered". What they mean is that the good work is well covered—that the bad work we can do. Pirates then suit these respectable haulage contractors or muck-shifting firms, or whatever you like to call them. Then we do the work for them. You don't have to take this with a pinch of salt. I have proved to you that one of the licensed firms named in "Lowdown on the tipper pirates" I have done work for in the past week.
Millen: How long have you actually been working for yourself?
Pirate: I started working for myself last March. I have found that a pirate is one of the most exploited people by haulage firms that there could be. Haulage firms in fact do earn more money than the pirates without ever turning a wheel by passing work on to them at such reduced rates. Mr. House talks about a percentage taken all the way down the line, he admits that in certain circumstances quite a few firms just take one big percentage themselves and pass it down to us because they are earning more by us doing the work than if they carried it out themselves.
Millen: A large operator would land a sizeable contract in the first instance and then not want to do the job, or part of the job, and start looking around for someone to do the work at a lower price?
Pirate: A large company has to take these messy, mucky jobs. They can't refuse everything. They've got to take jobs as they come along. But they will price them and if they find jobs that they really don't want to do they are passed to people like us at something like half the price quoted. I could prove it if I had to.
Millen: Are you kept busy or are you hard put to it to find work?
Pirate: I can find work every day of the week. I find the difficulty mainly picking the type of work I can afford to take. I have to be careful whom I work for and what the work involves.
Millen: What about price? You say that a large company will be given a contract at 12s. and offer it to you at 6s. How do you view this?
Pirate: Well you can't do anything else but take it. I must work. The best rate I have ever been paid for carrying muck away has been 6s. fid. a yard.
Millen: What else do you carry?
Pirate: I have carried materials but it's been via these companies again, when it suits them. They suddenly decide we're not pirates after all—that we are quite respectable people. We're only pirates when work is tight.
Millen: Does being a pirate inconvenience you?
Pirate: The inconvenience is that consciencewise we would all like to be legitimate. Secondly, I'm not someone who likes to eat the crumbs when there is cake about. I have to do it in the hope that some day I will beat this. My only chance, that I can see, is to purchase a B licence, which is again something illegal. 1 notice that there is plenty about the pirates and how they operate in this article you published, but there is nothing about these legitimate B-licensed firms which are forever advertising in the Evening News— advertising B licences for sale, for hire or some such thing, which is illegal!
Millen: This question of small ads in the Evening News was mentioned to me by Mr. House, I recall.
Pirate: The other thing that gripes me intensely about this article is that most of these haulage firms started the same way as us. Everybody starts at the bottom. You need a certain amount of luck—and one day you're a respected member of the community.
Millen: Is it difficult for someone to start with one lorry and to do extremely well, assuming they start by operating illegally?
Pirate: It's a question of luck. I've had my opportunity hut passed it up by not being canny enough. There's been a question of it happening in the past week. Somebody gets on to something which is good and an earner. If you can keep it to yourself and run for two or three months then you can become one of these respectable big people.
Millen: How do you get such a job?
Pirate: We are all out looking. We're all intelligent people to a certain extent. We all have commitments on our lorries, to our families, and added expense. We look about for work to try to meet these commitments.
Millen: An owner-operator cannot allow anything serious to happen to his vehicle?
Pirate: That is one of the most ridiculous points that Mr. House has brought up. He states that they are either stolen with false number plates, that they are uninsured, running on red diesel, not taxed and not licensed. He puts the figure as being near 50 per cent. I have met hundreds of owner-drivers. I've seen a certain pit in Kent where the Excise people have sat examining the lorries and I have only seen one person running on red diesel—that was an Irishman who had a very quick way out of the country. But that business about being stopped by the police, producing phoney envelopes with a different name, rushing home, swopping your numberplates and painting your lorry a different colour is absolutely ridiculous.
We can't get work without being on the telephone or giving an address. We have to send in our accounts and receive cheques. This stuff about coming out of nowhere and going back to nowhere is ridiculous. How could you get work? You have to keep in contact. As soon as I ring anyone they ask, "What is your name, phone number, number and year of your lorry, what is the yardage of your lorry."
These are the points I dispute.
Millen: When they give you the job they are fully aware of the fact that you are not licensed?
Pirate: No. They do not dirty their own hands. They pass the work on to someone else. They know full well what is going on. They just blind up the books.
Millen: When they offer work do they ask, "Are you licensed or not?" Does it happen that way?
Pirate: It's very carefully evaded. One or two companies would not give us work under any circumstances. They would ask this question. But they have the decency to tell you, so you know where you stand.
They care when it suits them. If it is good work or things are tight, they care. But if they don't want the work or there is plenty on, or dirty work, or they can harm their lorry—then they don't care who it goes out to. It can only go out to one source in the end and that's to pirates.
Millen: When a big licensed operator has a job, part of which it doesn't want, what would you think would go through their minds then?
Pirate: They immediately think of the semilegal firms with a couple of B licensed tippers They pay the semi-legal company more money. They would take a rake-off from this company who then obviously wouldn't be able to cope with the work because of the amount of vehicles thai they have got and they would then pass it on tc people like myself, again at a reduced amount So 1 get the cheapest rate of all and most likel3 the most expensive tipping charges. Because once again, the tips are owned by one of du bigger companies and when we go in to tip it': a minimum of 10s. and anything up to 25s.
Millen: One of the many problems pinpointet by Mr. House was the shortage of tips.
Pirate: There is a shortage of tips but thei there always is at this time of the year.
Millen: The point being that where ther are plenty of tips you won't find pirate: but where there is a shortage of tips oh viously you will.
Pirate: That's a ridiculous statement i one way. In fact what it means is tin operators want the work close to the ti and pass out work involving a decent ru to the pirate. When there's plenty of hi there's plenty of lorries.
Millen: There's no problem then.
Pirate: No, tipping is the problem. Yo obviously haven't got tips in Green Park Hyde Park. If you're working in the We End you've got to go out to Feltham down to Dagenham or somewhere like tha But your licensed operator will have take the job at a worthwhile rate for running ol that far. But they are employing Ion drivers, who in the main are lazy and will not do an economical day's work on that distance.
You'll see tipper lorries any day of the week in the afternoon with names up outside every betting shop in London. You'll see them strung out along cafes along every road that approaches a tip. Queues of them outside cafes. Holding the roads up. But you won't see owner-drivers sitting about like that.
These firms get a good price for running out to a long tip, but what they do then is, once again, pass the work on to people like us at a much reduced price. We then have to do the long runs and if there is any fly-tipping brought about by this price business. being a long run and everything, the pirate is blamed. They have given the murderer the weapon.
Millen: I can understand the point about employees not caring, but in the case of a pirate working for himself, his time being precious to him, it would be understandable that if he saw a bit of open ground he might be sorely tempted to tip the damn stuff.
Pirate: I cannot dispute that there is flytipping. What I do dispute is the fact that Mr. House has tarred us all with the same brush. It is not hard for Mr. House or anyone to catch the people who are doing the fly-tipping. We all know who it is. You go on a job and in five minutes you know who is fly-tipping. The contractor knows.
I suppose this would not be believed but I have worked on council jobs and it's all a big laugh, fly-tipping, with these people. It is never taken seriously. It is encouraged rather than discouraged by anyone connected with the removal of the muck—I'm talking about the contractor or his agent. They want the lorry back as quickly as possible.
Millen: I notice that you often use the
word "we" who exactly do you mean by "we"?
Pirate: All my colleagues. I don't know a fly-tipper. I have only ever worked with one--and 1 have worked with a lot of people. We have to work together. We phone each other up. We might get work for two or three lorries. We are a big network. We work in co-operation with other owner-drivers, with other companies, also with very large companies.
Millen: If you are offered a large job which is too big for you, then you have a number of people you can quickly contact?
Pirate: I could take on any job that I was offered. I would not expect to do it all myself. I would take on a 50,000 yard muck job to do in a period, if the price is right. But I will not take on work and exploit other people on a rate. And 1 would not do a job at a ridiculous rate.
Millen: If a job was too big how many pirates could you contact?
Pirate: If necessary I could command on a worthwhile job anything up to 100 lorries. It snowballs. We have numbers that we can phone up and everybody else has also. They would all be one-man businesses. I would say that there are more tipper lorries privately owned—the normal four-wheeler-than by haulage contractors. If Mr. House woke up tomorrow and found that all his dreams had come true, London would be in a hell of a state. There would not be enough people to clear the work. And there are very large companies that have used pirates rather than regular contractors because they get a better service from pirates. They are more industrious, more reliable and more efficient workers. I can give you the name of one company— maybe you would like to check up on it yourself. These ,firms prefer dealing with us rather than haulage contractors. We're reliable, keen and do the job.
Millen: Is this really so?
Pirate: Yes. We are far more efficient. We show up their drivers for what they are worth. The employed driver is being exploited wagewise. I have been a driver myself and I know. An owner-driver will always do a couple more loads a day than an employed tipper driver. If an employed driver is doing four, we will do six, because one will cover the diesel and one will cover the tipping charges.
Now this fly-tipping. Police have stopped me and then told me who it is that does the flytipping at the same time. In the main one of the biggest offenders are . . . This is true. The police stopped them and they're back in Ireland before you can say. They are employed on a daily basis, nobody knows who they are. It's never the same fellow driving the same lorry twice.
Millen: Tell me more about your vehicle.
Pirate: I paid £450 for it last June or July. It is getting on for 24, 3 years old. I bought it from a reputable dealer, with bald tyres and quite a few other deficiencies. I had to put a new set of tyres on the back which cost me approximately £100. I've had to overhaul the brakes completely which cost me another £80. I had to put a new floor on the back which cost me £15.
The main thing about my lorry is that it belonged to a reputable tipper operator. But one day I found that my front propshaft just came away completely. I'd had terrible vibration on my vehicle for some time and tried everything to find out what it was. When the propshaft went! found out.
I found out that this reputable company a very efficient concern—cut the propshaft in half when it had broken befote and welded another spline on it. In other words it cost me about £16, or something like that, whereas when it went with them it cost them the price of welding another piece on the end.
Millen: You've spent about £200 on maintenance then?
Pirate: Well I've spent more than that because we are doing something all the time. Since then I've worn out other tyres, I've re-done shackle pins, but every weekend I am looking round for faults on my lorry. I'm forever having it tidied up. I don't do it myself. I'm not one of the mechanical wizards. But I do have it done and in the main it's done by reputable people. I don't mess about with secondhand parts or anything. I get new.
Millen: What is your reaction to the suggestion that the sides of pirate tippers are often boarded up to increase the load?
Pirate: First the point Mr. House makes that you buy an old banger for about £200-£300. I'm sure anybody who pays that price for a vehicle doesn't consider it an old banger. An tild banger is something about £50. For £200 £300, you can buy a decent vehicle if you are prepared to do a certain amount of work on it. You would expect a post-1960 vehicle.
But he goes on to say that with this old banger, with no brakes or anything, you then attach planks or scaffold boards to the side so that you can get more muck on. I take it what he means is that you buy a 6 yard lorry, stick a plank on which makes it then about an 8 yard lorry and he then goes on to say that you go to the job and book out 10 yards. This is ridiculous.
The simple fact is that any pirate operator is held rigidly to yardage. He can never get away with a yard over the top, but is always given a yard over the top—but never on paper. He is always given a yard over the top, which he carts away for nothing, whereas for the reputable haulage companies, many of which Mr. House mentions, it is standard practice and standard instruction to the driver to book an extra yard.
The only lorries that are built-up excessively are lorries which are carrying coal, coke, slurry, breeze, ashes, fly ash, hardcore, etc., to get the weight you are allowed to carry. You build your motor up accordingly Millen: You say this is the practice in the London area because they work on yardage in London whereas in the Midlands and other parts of the country it is on a tonnage basis?
Pirate: With muck-moving haulage contractors will pass the job on yardage and they estimate the yardage themselves. There is this colossal fear that they might have made a mistake so they'll price the job, pay for it, and then they'll arrange for the actual cartage of the stuff. Then they are hammering it out, you know, really loading the lorry as much as it will stand to safeguard themselves.
And most of these jobs are priced. Muckshifting is usually priced. It is not on what you cart away—the price is made before you start moving. So that the more that is squeezed on the lorry the bigger profits for the legal companies and the bigger the hammering for the pirate lorry.
The haulage contractor and the contractor will come to an agreement as to the yardage. For example, they haven't started digging on a job but they agree that there is 100 yards to come Out. Say they are operating 10-yard lorries— that's 10 loads.
But if they are sub-letting the work or they are pushing it out to make fatter profits, they get a pirate in and load his lorry up two yards over the top. So then he has only done eight loads, which he has only been allowed to book at 10 yards at the reduced rate. The haulage contractor is two loads to the good. But multiply this up to a 50,000-yard job and you see what kind of money this involves.
Millen: The impression I have been given by other people is that licensed operators have several distinct grouses. One is that the licensed operator will have appreciably larger overheads, because, for one thing, he must have his vehicles properly maintained for fear of GV9s, etc. But main point is that unlicensed people are in a position to undercut them, so they are losing business. I think I can understand both sides of this question.
Pirate: But you don't understand. Where do you think we get the work from? It's from the very same people who are doing the cribbing. We don't go out and make our own contacts and deal with the contractor direct. All we deal with is haulage contractors.
They pay us weekly and they get their cheque monthly. Now they charge us five per cent for that privilege. This five per cent a week after they've already taken the cream amounts to an earning of 20 per cent on their money a month.