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Ad The European Parliament has created some pretty absurd legislation

12th July 2001, Page 46
12th July 2001
Page 46
Page 46, 12th July 2001 — Ad The European Parliament has created some pretty absurd legislation
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

in its time, but with the Working Time Directive it really has surpassed itself.

Imagine the scene. Some bright spark sits down in Brussels and says: 'Let's drive even more trucks onto the UK's congested roads. Let's see if they can find thousands more drivers in an industry that's already understaffed—and while we're at it, why not fuel inflation right through the supply chain? Oh, and just for good measure, let's give non-British hauliers another leg-up into the UK market," The stuff of nightmares? If only! This scenario is all too real. It's coming fast over the horizon and the UK transport industry seems to be surrendering without a fight. So how exactly will the WTD affect UK hauliers? From October 2003 your workers will have to comply with a maximum 48-hour average working week and a maximum nightshift of eight hours. There will be absolutely no optoats, even for individual employees who wish to work more hours than allowed by the WTD.

At the moment, a typical working week for most of TNT's 1,500 daytime multi-drop drivers is 55 hours, and our 220 Linehaul drivers average a 10-hour night. A trunk driver travelling each evening from our Durham depot to our main sortation hub in Warwickshire can complete the journey in less than four hours. But by the time his trailer has been tipped and then reloaded with deliveries for the North-East he has already clocked up six hours. It doesn't take a genius to work out that he could only get half-way back to Durham in the final two hours of an eight-hour nightshift.

TNT has made major investments positioning depots and hubs around the 10-hour night. In fact 20 of our 50 nationwide depots are more than three hours away from our newest sortation centre near Tamworth, which cost £22m to build.

The WTI) could mean building new regional hubs or switching drivers halfway through linehaul journeys. Both of these are extremely costly options which, ultimately, customers would have to pay for. Some transport operators will, of course, opt for more daytime trunking, reversing the positive effects on road congestion which increased night-time movements have brought.

The picture for the 1,500 collection and delivery drivers based at our 54 nationwide depots is equally alarming. Reducing their average working week from 55 to 48 hours would mean recruiting another 225 extra drivers to get the job done—a tall order in an industry that is already short of 47,000 people. You can then add a cool £6.7m just to purchase the extra vehicles, and another £1.7m per year in wages and running costs.

The other option involves keeping the same number of vehicles but switching employees to Continental shift patterns so a driver can still do an 11-hour day, but only for four days of the week. Even this means finding 15% more drivers than we currently have.

So who will pay for all this inefficiency? Not Brussels, that's for sure. Once again it will be other motorists—they'll be the first to suffer from the increased rush-hour congestion. And our customers (around 250,000 businesses in a typical year) will pass on our increased costs to their clients, thereby creating inflationary pressures throughout the economy.

It would be some consolation if the UK were competing on a level playing field, but the draft legislation favours drivers from mainland Europe. Why? Because the vast majority of them are self-employed and will be exempt from the new law until 2006, giving them three years to steal a march on the rest of us by working longer hours.

I urge all readers of CM to join forces with TNT and lobby the government to reverse this ridiculous legislation. Brussels is putting the future of the industry as we know it on the line. We must make a united stand or prepare to suffer catastrophic consequences.

You can add your voice to TNT's campaign by sending an e-mail to bert.proctortnt.co.uk.

Tags

Organisations: European Parliament
Locations: Durham, Brussels

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