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RESPONSIBILITY FOR TEMPS • Recently, when you asked the question
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"who is to blame if a temporary driver is found by the police to be out of driving hours'?" (CM 24-30 August), in reading your own news item you will find one answer. Whoever owns and/or operates the vehicle is clearly liable because a 'temp is a temporary employee of a company so the employer has the ultimate responsibility for the actions of those employed even if it is only for one day.
Obviously, if hauliers are responsible and sensible, they will only hire via firms that will guarantee that their employees will be suitable for the job in all foreseeable respects. There is at least one national firm which does this, where drivers have hours record sheets, and there are usually several quality regional or local agencies. Unfortunately these companies will inevitably be more expensive than the 'cowboy fringe'. Therein lies the rub — far too many hauliers consider initial costs rather than long-term costs and effects.
That also tends to be symptomatic of the attitude in transport — get somebody to do the job who won't complain about the wagon, load or route or be too fussy. In other words, there are plenty of supposedly reputable companies who are in effect 'cowboys' but would be aghast if then it was even suggested. Professional standards can mean vastly different things to different people.
Ideally, agencies should be held to be responsible, and indeed if hauliers did want to press the point then it seems clear that some sort of fraud would have taken place if a driver supplied was not legally capable of fulfilling a contract. Whether that would be actual fraud, contractual breach or drivers' hours offence, I would leave to the legal experts to ponder, but again if people use 'fly-by-night' agencies, then they will find them difficult to pin down, or even find, if legal action is threatened. Better to use firms that guarantee to provide for your needs or forfeit their fee, than to take unnecessary risks.
However, after 10 years providing such a service, experience has shown me that it takes a catastrophe before companies consider how, and why they use temporary, or more properly, contract workers. If it's not bad news, then some external pressure such as union agreements or a change of ownership are the only other ways to engender a change of habits.
In the end it's all down to attitudes. If hauliers don't want to be responsible for their own actions and make sure that they are getting temporary drivers who will not jeopardise their 0-licence and do a fair day's work for a decent rate of pay, then they shouldn't be in the industry. Unfortunately, the vast majority aren't prepared, nor can they see that they ought to be, if only because it's easier to blame someone else rather than do it properly in the first place. Name and address suPPlied.