i Much has been written about the new law governing our working time which is about to be introduced by
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the European Commission. So I read the Sound Off article regarding the Working Time Directive by Bert Proctor of TNT with great interest (CM12-18 July).
Unfortunately for him, I believe he destroys his argument when he points out that a trunk driver travelling each evening from Durham to Warwickshire can complete the journey in less than four hours but, because he has to wait around and probably help while the trailer is tipped and loaded, it could be six hours before he can get away from the depot, and he would not then be able to make it back to Durham in the final two hours of an eight-hour night shift.
The point, surely, is that a driver's job should be to drive. Clearly if he drove down and the trailer was ready for him, he would have plenty of time to complete that particular journey.
Unfortunately, drivers have been used as a cheap form of labour for a long time. As drivers how long they spend waiting around to be tipped and loaded, and they will all tell you it is a substantial proportion of their time. A return to the days when demurrage was charged for vehicles that were kept waiting by the companies is long overdue.
In my opinion this is simply about managers actually having to manage—an art they seem to have forgotten for the most part these days. lam sure we all remember the outcry when the Working Time Directive was introduced to the rest of industry (excluding mobile workers): experts from the big companies were predicting massive job losses. Figures announced recently in fact show the lowest unemployment for 30-odd years, which I think speaks for itself.
In any event, it appears there will be provision in the Working Time Regulations for the working time to be extended to 10 hours during the night, as long as compensatory rest periods are used. I wonder how many car drivers, including Bert, would be happy to drive eight hours every night? Not many, I am sure.
The option of reducing the pay of lorry drivers is not available either, as there is already a great shortage of skilled drivers in the industry. It is high time companies such as TNT started engaging in positive dialogue with their workers and the workers' representatives.
Hopefully, the Working Time Directive Regulations for mobile workers will soon become a reality. It was a disgrace when they were excluded in the first place, and the haulage companies are going to have to live with it. It cannot come soon enough for me.