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Can't pay, shan't pay
Page 8
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The CBI isn't exactly renowned for using blunt language. However, its description of the European Commission's daft (sorry—draft) proposal to give temporary workers holiday and sickness pay as "very damaging to all concerned" is positively diplomatic compared with what the average haulier is likely to say. If operators have to pay agency drivers the same as full-time staff they might as well make them fulltime. But that will suit no one: agency drivers want the freedom to work for whoever they want, whenever they want. And hauliers, to put it bluntly, want to hire, and fire, as their businesses expand and contract. That's why agencies were created in the first place. Making companies pay for a temporary driver's fortnight in Benidorm is patently ridiculous. Unfortunately Commercial Motor is by no means confident that this proto-legislation won't become law. Those European Union countries with a strong "social" conscience may well take a very different view. The EC proposal comes at a time when, once again, Gordon Brown needs reminding that UK road hauliers still pay more tax than their EU counterparts (see page 13). In the past such talk has been dismissed on the grounds that foreign operators, particularly in France, pay higher "social costs". But if UK operators end up paying for the extension of temporary drivers' rights then that gap will become even wider. As far as this EC proposal goes, the buck mustn't stop here.