4 ms·

If this is true, what is preventing a British equity company from leasing a few dozen trucks, hiring from said 100k pool and arbitraging against the incredibly

If this is true, what is preventing a British equity company from leasing a few dozen trucks, hiring from said 100k pool and arbitraging against the incredibly low 'slave labour' wages? Presuming of course the customers want their goods delivered and can tolerate higher trucking costs.

native_samples 5y ago
The fact that the "blame Brexit" brigade is currently trying to convince everyone that the solution is to flood the market with cheap Polish drivers again instead of letting wages rise to meet demand. That imposes a pretty big risk on any such strategy. Plus the government stopped doing HGV driving tests so there's a huge backlog and people who want to get into the market can't.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > That imposes a pretty big risk on any such strategy. Surely long term haulage contracts would deal with that?
  - native_samples 5y ago
    The proposal is predicated on existing haulage users not having such contracts, otherwise they couldn't easily switch to the new firms.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      Surely those existing long-term contracts would have clauses guaranteeing driver availability* and deliveries? Which, if this is indeed the problem *, could now be voided? [Out of curiosity, which drivers were delivering all the fuel a few weeks ago, and where have they gone?]
      - native_samples 5y ago
        Nowhere. They're still there. There's been a run on petrol stations caused by misleading press reports, which in turn appear to have been planted by people who run some sort of haulage operators association. There has been no actual overnight change in supply, just an overnight change in demand - one that appears to be artificially created through the media in order to pressure the government to partially undo Brexit by allowing cheap labour back in.

4 ms·

If this is true, what is preventing a British equity company from leasing a few dozen trucks, hiring from said 100k pool and arbitraging against the incredibly

by throwaway210222 5y ago

native_samples 5y ago
The fact that the "blame Brexit" brigade is currently trying to convince everyone that the solution is to flood the market with cheap Polish drivers again instead of letting wages rise to meet demand. That imposes a pretty big risk on any such strategy. Plus the government stopped doing HGV driving tests so there's a huge backlog and people who want to get into the market can't.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > That imposes a pretty big risk on any such strategy. Surely long term haulage contracts would deal with that?
  - native_samples 5y ago
    The proposal is predicated on existing haulage users not having such contracts, otherwise they couldn't easily switch to the new firms.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      Surely those existing long-term contracts would have clauses guaranteeing driver availability* and deliveries? Which, if this is indeed the problem *, could now be voided? [Out of curiosity, which drivers were delivering all the fuel a few weeks ago, and where have they gone?]
      - native_samples 5y ago
        Nowhere. They're still there. There's been a run on petrol stations caused by misleading press reports, which in turn appear to have been planted by people who run some sort of haulage operators association. There has been no actual overnight change in supply, just an overnight change in demand - one that appears to be artificially created through the media in order to pressure the government to partially undo Brexit by allowing cheap labour back in.