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Vehicle and fuel duty might be higher in the UK than the rest of Europe but how do drivers' wages and conditions compare? Guy Sheppard examines the best and worst.
ddie Stobart is the UK's most high-profile name so far to announce plans to flag out part of its international fleet to the Continent in the current row over the UK's competitiveness in road transport. With the Government refusing to narrow the gap between UK and continental fuel prices and Vehicle Excise Duty, the case for basing fleets on the Continent is gathering strength.
David Ross, managing director of Currie European Transport, says a shortage of drivers is an added incentive. "I think it is something we will be looking at in the course of the next couple of months." Dumfries-based Currie already has depots in Paris and Holland where it employs more than 40 operations, sales and warehouse staff.
Ross says there is no question of Continentals taking over the jobs of existing employees but adds: "Because we predominantly send trucks over there with British drivers, there's nothing to say we can't do it the other way round when our trucks are coming over here."
Working out the economics of employing Continental drivers instead of drivers from the UK is complicated, not least because the social contributions companies make for each employee vary widely. French drivers dearly feel hard done by when they resort to blockading ports to improve pay and conditions but they are not necessarily much worse off than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe.
A Freight Transport Association study of the overall bill for running a 38-tonne artic shows the manpower costs £30,000 year in France, around £7,500 more than in the UK. Another study, by the Contributions Agency, shows that compared with the UK, social contributions by employers are three times higher in France and Italy and twice as high in Belgium, Spain and Austria. Denmark is the only country in the EU where contributions are lower than in the UK. Wim Smolders, an International Road Transport Union RU) delegate to the EU, says: "It is very difficult to establish a true picture. We tried to come up with something five or six years ago but the conclusion was that we couldn't. It is generally known that French basic wages are fairly low but daily allowances and the hours they are working make what they take home at the end of the month not that different from other countries."
Caution
Comparisons also have to be treated with caution because of the big regional variations in pay that exist in each country, particularly in Germany where sharp economic divisions exist between the east and west. In the UK, the disparities are reflected in the different regional joint industrial council agreements—drivers of 30-tonne vehicles are paid f5 an hour in the West Midlands and £4.68 in Scotland.
Disparities are also evident within specific sectors of the industry. Research by Incomes Data Services shows that in the UK, a driver of a 7.5 tonne vehicle will earn
£186.80 for a 39-hour week with Retail Co-operative Societies and L229.22 for a 37.5 hour week with Walter Holland & Sons, part of Northern Foods.
Further complications arise when daily allowances are included in the overall comparisons. Brian Fitzgerald, transport branch secretary for the Services, Industrial, Professional & Technical Union in Ireland, says these are increasingly being merged into basic pay as a way of holding down labour costs. "In real terms, wages are going down. The long distance drivers going to Britain and the Continent are being paid a pittance. I think their conditions are terrible in comparison with other EU countries."
He says basic pay in Ireland is around £184 (sterling) for a 39hour week, but this would include expenses. The best paid drivers, such as in oil distribution, receive around L26o a week or £13,520 a year. In the UK, BP Amoco pays a minimum of 4o7 a week or £21,200 a year for tanker drivers. They receive a meal break allowance of 195 per month and are entitled to five weeks' holiday a year.
Meal allowance
Contractors working for BP Amoco in France are paid an average of £12,530 a year which includes meal allowance. They also are entitled to five weeks' holiday a year. In Spain, where the company also contracts out all its tanker distribution work, the average salary is £16,460 (£317 a week). Drivers receive a meal allowance and annual holiday entitlement is 24 days.
Danny Bryan, national road transport secretary for the Transport & General Workers Union, says German, Swedish and Benelux drivers are among the best paid. "If you take the general level of prosperity in a country, you can see that reflected in wages and that includes drivers. Because southern European countries are poorer, by definition their levels of pay tend to be lower as well."
Eurostat, the statistical office for the European Union, reinforces his point. Although it lacks specific information about lorry drivers' pay, its research shows that Denmark has the bestpaid employees in the transport and communications sector followed by Luxembourg and Holland.
Worst payer
Pay in these countries is more than 20% higher than in the UK where pay is marginally higher than in France and Italy. UK pay is nearly 25% higher than in Spain, the worst payer of all, according to the research.
If the euro is successful in generating increased prosperity among EU member states which have joined the new currency, then UK drivers could sink lower in the European wages league.
However, for the time being the biggest change will be that drivers have a much clearer idea of what they can afford when working abroad.