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Ready or not, here it comes
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Exclusive!
What will the Working Time Directive mean? We conclude our report of the round-table
discussion among the movers and shakers.
Last week we featured the first half of the CM debate between three well-informed industry figures. We gathered them together to talk about what they want — and expect — from the Working Time Directive. Ron Webb, national secretary for road transport with the Transport & General Workers Union; Richard Turner, chief executive of the Freight Transport Association; and Barry Proctor, outspoken haulier, RHA member and CM columnist, found plenty to talk about.
We rejoin the discussion as they consider the health and safety implications of the directive, and examine operators' hopes for "flexibility" in interpreting it. Ron Webb:
"Statistically speaking the figures for accidents are totally unacceptable. Let's not ignore facts on this, they paint a totally unacceptable picture. Industry now has the opportunity to join with us and other organisations in taking responsibility to restructure and modernise. I've never accepted that this should be sacrificed on the altar of cost. For years we have attempted to reduce hours to reasonable levels and have not succeeded.
"The reality is that, as much as we might not like it, it has taken this piece of legislation to make the industry do anything. It's taken this to get us together with the employers —now we need to try to make this work.There's a balancing act to be performed." Richard Turner:
"The really important issue now is that we have got these rules and, although we might not like them, we have got to live with them. There is some flexibility at the margins but I think the industry is going to hit a brick wall on 23 March next year unless people like Ron work with companies to try and make this directive work in a practical way.
"If there's a victory for the unions here it's the 48-hour week, but all the things around the edge are important. We have to look to them to ensure companies stay in business. It's no good working for a company that has to put its prices up so the company it's supplying goes bust. We operate in a global market these days, where there is always cheap competition from overseas. We need to bear that in mind. If we work together we can get something from this and get a sensible agreement out of this."
RW: "Where we have got good relationships with employers we will be working with them, but where the relationship is not so good... "It's like everything, there should be no
expectation that we will be quite that flexible. We will be looking to work in the best interests of our members and that includes any debate about employment security.
"You say it's about 'flexibility on the fringes', but I look at them as quite substantial, for example extending the 17-week break to six months.
"As an industry it's not got the best of records, the reputation of employers on hours is that they could not calculate hours from week to week, let alone month to month.
"That doesn't include large companies but the industry is made up of thousands of operators that don't apply those high standards. So I was sorry to see that 17-week [reference] period go to six months."
RTI"We have got enormous problems with the supply chain in regard to this legislation and that flexibility is really important for business to make sense of it."
RW: "The derogation that has been given on that, well we welcome the collective agreement aspect to it, in so much as the 17-week reference period can only be changed through a workforce agreement. I'm content with those two proposals. I've got lots of members who are content with four-on four-off, and we welcome flexibility wherever it is in the interests of our members first.
"With periods of availability, it's a trick that I'm going to watch. I want to see how the government can transpose this so it applies fairly to workers in both the petroleum and retail sectors, for example. In the latter there's a lot of waiting time and to try to call that anything else is a smokescreen or cloak.
"A driver could have as many as five hours taken out of his working day under non-availability by virtue that he's been waiting. He's got responsibility for the vehicle and can't leave it and that period is not working time? Come on. That could mean, all in all, a 15-hour day.
"On the other hand, take a tanker driver who has very little waiting time: he works 10 hours, which fulfils the WTD, yet both drivers are considered to have worked 48 hours. The WTD is quite clear in saying that employees have the right not to work more than 48 hours a week. I rather suspect that we are going to see a lot of confusion here."
RIR "Do you consider that if a driver gets paid for an hour's work then that must be part of the 48-hour count? Is there any scope for a driver being paid for more than a 48-hour week?
"Are you saying that whether it's waiting time or whatever if he's paid for it then you are saying that counts towards the 48 hours? Barry Proctor:
Or do you mean that if he's worked 48 hours and also had five hours' waiting time then he's paid for 53 hours?"
RW: I see working out the hours as per the directive as completely separate from the bargaining arrangement. It's a matter to be decided by the workforce and the employer. For example, the 45-minute break is not counted in the WTD, do I want members to be paid for that? The bargaining front is a whole different agenda.
"Two years ago we warned about the traditional hourly pay structure and that mileage and productivity schemes were also going to take a knock. What the WTD will do, and is doing, is drive bargaining to a salary concept. That way a driver down in Weymouth or up in Grangemouth should have done the same number of hours over the year. It gives the employee income security and stability and it gives the employer stability, particularly around payroll costs: he knows what he has to pay out much more clearly." RT: "A lot of drivers are already moving towards that. But are you saying that although you believe in the principles of the WTD they should
not be confused with pay?"
RW: "Our policy is that for 48 hours' work we want 60 hours' pay. We have always said that." BP: "At the moment I'm running 21 trucks, and looking at my profit and loss accounts for the year. In the first few months I lost about £52,000 and I've got to get that back somehow.What I'm concerned about is that people will be looking to ship things out to owner-drivers, which will just depress the rates further.As it is one third of our turnover is paid to the government in taxation and if we make a profit we pay as well." RW: "One thing T&G reps say to me is that contractors are sometimes their own worst enemies in terms of the rates they'll work for." BP: "I can see where you are coming from but it's a fine line. Remember when the fuel went through the roof a little while back? Well, we wrote to all our customers asking for a 5% rise in rates on the back of this.Whilst most accepted it, one customer refused and cancelled all our work with him — about £40,000 per month. That's the sort of thing that you are dealing with here.That said, two weeks later when he'd been
let down and let down again he came back to us and gave us the 5% increase. But it's hard making everybody understand, particularly if you're tied into a contract."
RW: "What we are talking about is the reality of day-to-day business and the reality of my members' day-to-day lives.
"I have to say that I look forward to the day when contractors start working together in their best interests and the interests of everybody in the industry. Whether that's just a dream I don't know."
BP: "I can't see us walking into a customer's site and asking for 10-15% rate increases because they are not going to pay it. I think we might have to stop doing all the long-distance work.
"I can quite happily have trucks running around the Stoke and Birmingham area but Plymouth and Southampton — no thanks. Hopefully it will prompt a structural change by offering better service."
RT: "We need to persuade customers that they need to consider how they do their ordering and stock control in order to make our lives easier." RW: "There are many things that will have to be debated here, but it comes down to actually having a workforce to run a business. If you have not got a workforce that you can rely on and is consistent then you have not got a
business anyway. "A bigger issue than the WTD in my
opinion is the lack of people coming in to the industry. The WTD goes some way towards helping that. It's a massive issue but the fact is that youngsters look at it and think it's not for them."
BP: "There are other reasons, like a lack of facilities, that put people off as well. And the fact is that although a 48-hour week may be attractive, these guys aren't going to train themselves."
RW: "Personally I'd like to see more training than we do now and, providing that arrangement is fine with my members and that they would be earning, then time spent training should be excluded from working time. But there's no-one like the road haulage industry for finding a way around rules — after all, they said the tachograph was impregnable."
BP: "What annoys me is that we are still unsure about what the rules are at this late stage."
RT: "The other worrying thing is that more people are asleep than awake on this issue — we're gradually seeing a swell of interest.The fact that firms are bidding for contracts that run through the start of it means that some people are starting to take an interest, but we've got to make the whole industry aware."
RW: "I can still see a tremendous amount of complacency around. There are too many operators thinking that it's not going to come in or that it won't apply to them."
RW: "We actually proposed that they should be the enforcement agency, we weren't happy that it was going to be the Health & Safety Inspectorate and industry tribunals that were enforcing it, as they tend to deal with things after the event. "Most employers will comply so my concern was that we would be letting a lot of people off the hook. So we are pretty pleased to have VOSA there but, that said, they have got to be
properly resourced and they are underfunded at the moment."
RT: "The big question is whether people will comply with the rules and there's going to be a scramble for people and equipment. Because when they comply, how they deploy people and kit is going to mean, in many cases, they'll 'need more of both. It's not whether we can comply quickly but whether we can comply and get things done."
RW: "You're not going to like this,but the industry has dug its head in the sand and it's been that way for the past four years.We have been saying that it's coming whether you like it or not — and we've said this all along.
"We said the industry needed to wake up and see it and be proactive about it. But in my view the industry isn't ready and it's only got itself to blame. That may be harsh but that's reality, everybody should know it's coming in, no question. I do have a touch of sympathy that we won't know until October what the final version of the rule is: that's absolutely crazy. But that didn't and doesn't stop them working with their employees to bring the hours down."
BP: "I think it's going to have a major impact, not overnight maybe but it's going to be a massive headache. The MD of Shell is already predicting a lack of drivers." RW: "I don't think the petroleum sector is going to be that badly hit, that'll be at the top reward sector that's going to be at the bottom of the heap and will struggle to of the league, it's the general hire-and restructure. The fact is that we have run out of time — and if someone had said that four years ago they'd have been just as accurate." •