Concrete drivers hit by pay freeze
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• Up to 500 owner-drivers working for the concrete division of ARC are being hit with a rates freeze.
Mick Binns, who represents about 40 of the ARC drivers through the National Owner Drivers Association, has studied their contracts and believes that ARC is within its rights.
"In the letter to the drivers ARC suggested it had justification to reduce the rate and it was doing the drivers a favour by not decreasing it," he says. "They don't seem to realise the owner-drivers' costs have increased as well as their own." He points out that last year the rate only went up by L5%.
ARC will not comment on the freeze, which Binns estimates holds the rate down to an average of £1.50/km at the 170 Premix plants.
Drivers are already running below the 1,200 loads a year they need to break even, and now they face other increased costs. They claim that ARC is avoiding paying for extra mileage caused by road restrictions and has increased its workshop maintenance rate by 75p per hour, as well as raising its fees for administering orders.
On top of a £27 monthly administration charge, they now have to pay extra for using ARC order numbers.