‘EU truckers will NOT help Britain out of the s**t they created themselves’: union chief dashes hope
‘EU truckers will NOT help Britain out of the s**t they created themselves’: European HGV drivers’ union chief dashes hopes of ‘short-term visa’ fix – while British driver says red-tape and abuse forced them out of the industry
Europe-based lorry union said drivers will not be tempted back to the UK for the promise of temporary visaDespite attractive pay, FNV’s Edwin Atema said they would not return to sort ‘s**t they created themselves’It came as one British trucker said he and colleagues were treated like ‘lepers of society’ and left their jobs
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Lorry drivers from the EU are refusing to come to the UK – because they believe problems plaguing the supply chain are its own fault.
The Government has approved plans to bring in 5,000 foreign HGV operators to deal with the shortage, which has been blamed on a number of factors including the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit.
But promises of special visas and attractive pay have fallen on deaf ears, with one union boss declaring they ‘will not go to the UK for a short term visa to help UK out of the s**t they created themselves’.
And lorry drivers in this country are as equally disillusioned, with one who gave up the job after 30 years, likening they way they are treated ‘to being the lepers of society’.
Edwin Atema, Head of enforcement and research at the Dutch-based FNV union, which represents drivers across the EU and Europe said the UK had an enormous battle on its hands to woo foreign drivers back.
He said: ‘Pay is an important area but not the only area. People in Europe and across Europe have completely lost trust in this industry.
‘Before the coronavirus crisis and Brexit this industry was sick already. Plagued by expectation, by irresponsible multinationals who drag down prices, which ended up with drivers voting with their feet and leaving the industry.
‘The EU workers that we speak to will not go to the UK for a short term visa to help UK out of the s**t they created themselves.’
Petrol pumps have run dry and supermarket chains and restaurants have been hit by the shortage of HGV drivers.
The Road Haulage Association says it is short of 100,000 drivers and believes 20,000 have left over Brexit reasons.
Edwin Atema, Head of enforcement and research at the Dutch-based FNV union, hit out at the idea workers would go back
Former lorry driver Jim Titheridge, from Canterbury, Kent, said hauiiers were treated as ‘lepers of society’ so left the industry
Jim Titheridge, from Canterbury, Kent, took to Facebook to blast treatment of lorry drivers who can drive for up to 11 hours
The shortage of drivers saw petrol pumps run dry as motorists panic buy fuel worried that they will not be able to run cars
It has seen chaos on the streets as motorists block them queuing to try and fill their tanks with petrol.
The shortages and painful queues for the pumps are expected to last for the rest of the week but one of Boris Johnson’s most senior ministers today insisted that the Army would not be brought in to ease the crisis.
Tens of thousands more Britons are working from home today as the fuel crisis saw up to nine in ten forecourts run dry leaving NHS staff including doctors and nurses without petrol and schools planning a return to online learning because teachers can’t fill up their cars.
Drivers queued for four hours or more in lines stretching for miles and some even slept in their cars outside petrol stations as it was revealed Boris Johnson could call in the Army to deliver petrol and diesel across Britain amid a crisis that has seen competition laws suspended to allow businesses such as Shell and BP to share drivers.
Britain’s biggest petrol retailers have said they expect the crisis to ease in the next three days because once people have a full tank, demand for fuel is likely to fall away by Thursday or Friday. And Downing Street again denied there is a shortage of fuel, saying there are ‘ample stocks in this country’.
But as Boris Johnson considered emergency plans to halt the petrol panic, Environment Secretary George Eustice has said the Government has ‘no plans at the moment’ to use soldiers to drive petrol tankers amid continuing shortages at filling stations.
He said: ‘We are bringing Ministry of Defence trainers in to accelerate some of the HGV training to clear a backlog of people who want to carry out those tests, and there’s definitely a role there for the MOD.
‘In terms of other things we’ve no plans at the moment to bring in the Army to actually do the driving, but we always have a Civil Contingencies section within the Army on standby – but we’re not jumping to that necessarily at the moment.’
A lack of fuel has led to a mass return to working from home today, just weeks after the Government lifted most coronavirus-related legislation to get more people into the office. TomTom traffic data revealed that congestion is down today in all major cities compared to when the chaos began last week.
And petrol stations with a fresh delivery of fuel have already been accused of of hiking fuel prices to as high as £1.57 per litre – up from the national average of £1.35 last week – and another 10p price rise could be on the way, experts have warned, as some garages sold out of fuel in an hour this morning.
Cars refueling at a BP service station in Wetherby near Leeds, after long waits for fuel again today saw roads blocked up
Tesco staff directing the queues during a rain storm on Monday morning at the petrol station in Ely, Cambridgeshire,
As dawn broke, drivers waited for hours to get to pumps in South London as panic buying made the situation worse
People push as a car, which has run out of petrol, the final few metres on to the forecourt as vehicles queue to refill at a Texaco fuel station in south London this morning
Schools have said they will return to the online classrooms used in lockdown if teachers can’t get to work – with some parents also unable to drive – while many petrol stations are now prioritising NHS workers in special two-hour slots where they must show ID to fill up.
One school in Surrey wrote to parents over the weekend saying: ‘The current petrol crisis could potentially disrupt school next week. The ability of staff and pupils to get to school may be compromised and there may also be issues with our food deliveries. Clearly, we have no desire to go back online so soon after the challenges of the last couple of years but we cannot exclude the possibility that it may be necessary’.
One headteacher tweeted: ‘This is actually going to be a problem. I don’t have any fuel myself and all the stations in my area are out of diesel. Most of my teachers commute further than ten miles to work’.
Desperate motorists have even started following fuel delivery drivers to petrol stations, earning the nickname ‘tanker w***ers’ from critics, as panic buying continues across the UK with fights even breaking out at the pumps.
One Twitter user said: ‘My brother in law is a lorry driver and delivers fuel. He’s on the road now and there are people following him – literally tracking his every turn – in cars. He says it’s like end of days’. He added: ‘I worried it might be really scary for him, but he just thinks they’re all kn*bs’.
Ministers will consider drafting in troops to deliver petrol and diesel later this week if panic-buying persists, sources said, after Government officials gave the green light for plans to bring in 5,000 foreign lorry drivers to deal with the shortage.
Transport Secretary Grant thinks the fuel crisis has been ‘manufactured’ as he accused haulage firms of sparking panic buying after they warned of HGV driver shortages.
He insisted ‘there is plenty of fuel’ to go around as he urged motorists to be ‘sensible’ and to ‘fill up when you normally would’.
He said the rush to forecourts which has seen lengthy queues at stations across the country ‘will come to an end’ because soon ‘everyone’s cars will be more or less filled up’.
Mr Shapps said the chaos is a ‘manufactured situation’ in comments likely to spark fury among retailers and transport bosses.
But he said that it would take a ‘considerable amount of time’ to fix the issue, which he said had been going on for five years and was also a problem in EU countries such as Poland.
Elsewhere the dissatisfaction with working conditions for HGV drivers has also come to the forefront.
Jim Titheridge, from Canterbury, Kent, took to Facebook to blast treatment of lorry drivers who can drive for up to 11 hours a day with limited access to clean showers or a parking spot to rest and eat.
The 62-year-old was met with a flurry of support from others who also claimed to have been forced to give up the job and warned better treatment was needed as drivers are the ‘backbone of our country’.
Lorry drivers are legally mandated to take a break of at least 45 minutes after 4.5 hours of driving but Jim says this is almost impossible when there are limited places for them to park – including ‘zero truck parking facilities’ in his hometown of Canterbury.
Motorists queue up for fuel at a Sainsbury’s supermarket petrol station in North West London, on September 26
A ‘no diesel’ sign has been placed outside a Sainsbury’s supermarket petrol station in North West London
Motorists fill up their vehicles with fuel at a Sainsbury’s supermarket petrol station in North West London
David Brazier, Kent county council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, acknowledged the issues facing lorry drivers but stressed that they had an ‘equal responsibility’ to their residents who had been blighted by ‘irresponsible parking’.
Jim wrote: ‘So, you’re running out of food on the shelves, fuel in the garages, you can not buy things you need, because the shops can’t get their supplies? Why is that? A shortage of goods? No. A shortage of money? No.
‘A shortage of drivers to deliver the goods? Well, sort of.
‘There is not actually a shortage of drivers, what we have, is a shortage of people who can drive, that are willing to drive any more. You might wonder why that is. I can not answer for all drivers, but I can give you the reason I no longer drive.
‘Driving was something I always yearned to do as a young boy, and as soon as I could, I managed to get my driving licence, I even joined the army to get my HGV licence faster, I held my licence at the age of 17.
‘It was all I ever wanted to do, drive trucks, I had that vision of being a knight of the roads, bringing the goods to everyone, providing a service everyone needed. What I didn’t take into account was the absolute abuse my profession would get over the years.
‘I have seen a massive decline in the respect this trade has, first, it was the erosion of truck parking and transport café’s, then it was the massive increase in restricting where I could stop, timed weight limits in just about every city and town, but not all the time, you can get there to do your delivery, but you can not stay there, nobody wants an empty truck, nobody wants you there once they have what they did want.
‘Compare France to the UK. I can park in nearly every town or village, they have marked truck parking bays, and somewhere nearby, will be a small routier, where I can get a meal and a shower, the locals respect me, and have no problems with me or my truck being there for the night.
‘Go out onto the motorway services, and I can park for no cost, go into the service area, and get a shower for a minimal cost, and have freshly cooked food, I even get to jump the queues, because others know that my time is limited, and respect I am there because it is my job. Add to that, I even get a 20% discount of all I purchase.
‘Compare that to the UK £25-£40 just to park overnight, dirty showers, and expensive, dried (under heat lamps) food that is overpriced, and I have no choice but to park there, because you don’t want me in your towns and cities.
‘Ask yourself how you’d feel, if doing your job actually cost you money at the end of the day, just so you could rest.
‘But that is not the half of it. Not only have we been rejected from our towns and cities, but we have also suffered massive pay cuts, because of the influx of foreign drivers willing to work for a wage that is high where they come from, companies eagerly recruited from the eastern bloc, who can blame them, why pay good money when you can get cheap labour, and a never ending supply of it as well.
‘Never mind that their own countries would suffer from a shortage themselves, that was never our problem, they could always get people from further afield if they needed drivers.
‘We were once seen as knights of the road, now we are seen as the lepers of society. Why would anyone want to go back to that?
‘If you’re worried about not getting supplies on your supermarket shelves, ask your local council just how well they cater for trucks in your district.
‘I know Canterbury has the grand total of zero truck parking facilities, but does have a lot of restrictions, making it difficult for trucks to stop anywhere.
‘Do you want me to go back to driving trucks?
‘Give me a good reason to do so.
‘Give anyone a good reason to take it up as a profession.
Mr Shapps said the rush to forecourts which has seen lengthy queues at stations across the country ‘will come to an end’ because soon ‘everyone’s cars will be more or less filled up’.
A Shell garage employee holds a sign on the side of the road informing traffic that they do not have unleaded petrol
‘Perhaps once you work out why you can not, you will understand why your shelves are not as full as they could be.
‘I tried it for over 30 years, but will never go back, you just couldn’t pay me enough.’
Jim said: ‘I wrote the post because I kept seeing everyone blaming Brexit for the shortage in drivers and obviously there is some truth in that, but I don’t think it’s the main reason.
‘It’s an excuse for a problem that’d been building up for years.
‘The transport cafes disappeared partly because some of them didn’t have good business and finding somewhere to park up is a real issue.
‘Parking bays slowly disappeared often because of legislation.
‘In Canterbury, if a truck has a delivery there, it can deliver but there’s nowhere it can park after. If it parks in a layby, it will get clamped.
‘If it parks somewhere on the road then someone is going to complain so where are they meant to stop?
‘It’s draining when you’re doing a job you love to do and everyone hates you for doing it.
‘Where there are places to park, the cost is so high that companies don’t want you to park there.
‘When you do park there, the food is abysmal, the facilities are really bad with filthy showers that get cleaned once a week.’
Since writing the post Jim has been inundated with support from lorry drivers and people offering their sympathy.
