EU transport chief Violeta Bulc plans to tighten enforcement rules so employers respect the law more.
Truck drivers and trade unions have formed an alliance to demand the European Commission close loopholes that let underpaid workers from poorer EU countries deliver goods anywhere in the bloc.
Ahead of a legal reform planned for May, Violeta Bulc, the EU transport chief, said yesterday (24 January) that so-called letterbox companies that drive down truckers’ salaries are “one of the main causes of tensions between low-wage and high-wage countries”.
A Romanian truck driver and union representatives packed a hearing room in the European Parliament to warn Bulc about underpaid, exploited truckers who are sent on long-distance trips across the EU and who fall through the cracks of what they call shoddy social welfare rules.
Bulc vowed that she won’t liberalise EU rules on cabotage that allow truck drivers to stay in another EU country for up to seven days and still be subject to the national laws of their home countries. But she does plan to beef up enforcement measures to prevent employers from breaking the law.
Cristina Tilling of the European Transport Workers’ Federation said that could mean requiring commercial trucks to use devices that register a driver’s nationality, where they drive and how long they stay on the road.
“It’s the most important thing to determine the labour law that applies to the driver,” Tilling told EurActiv.com.
Cross-border freight deliveries by truck have increased in the EU. Polish drivers transport more freight across EU borders than any other nationality in the bloc, while Germany and France receive the most deliveries by volume from foreign drivers, according to 2014 Eurostat figures.
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Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc wants to stop companies that use legal loopholes to underpay truck drivers. The executive says social dumping is rampant among truckers who drive between multiple countries every month—and Bulc wants to clamp down this year.
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Forty-two percent of Bulgarian and Romanian truck drivers travelling through Denmark said they earn on average €1,400 per month while Danish truckers earn three times that amount, according to a 2015 survey carried out by Danish consultancy COWI.
Marius Stanca, a Romanian truck driver, spoke at yesterday’s hearing about dangerous, unhygienic conditions and long hours. Stanca, who now works for a Danish haulage company, said that everything improved for him when he signed a Danish job contract.
“Not everybody has my luck,” he said.
The Commission has so far struggled to enforce EU-wide social standards for truck drivers who frequently travel between countries.
Last summer, the executive opened an infringement case against Germany and France for breaking EU internal market rules after national authorities required foreign trucking companies to pay drivers their national minimum wage whenever they pass through the countries.
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The European Commission launched legal action against Germany on Tuesday (19 May), accusing the government of illegally applying the national minimum wage to a number of trucking and haulage companies from Austria, Poland and Hungary.
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Bulc said in yesterday’s hearing that national minimum wage laws “should not be applied in a piecemeal way”.
She is drafting the new labour rules for truck drivers with Marianne Thyssen, the Commissioner in charge of EU social affairs, and said they will include measures to explain how a separate bill on the posting of workers will apply to the road freight sector.
The posted workers bill, which sets out rules for employees who are sent temporarily to other EU countries, has been stuck in fraught negotiations between national governments, the Commission and MEPs.
Some countries such as France have argued for tighter rules to prevent social dumping from underpaid workers, while a group of Eastern European countries have pushed back against measures they say are protectionist and discriminate against companies that already take on higher legal and administrative fees to send workers abroad.
Agnes Jongerius, a Dutch Socialist and one of two MEPs corralling the controversial posted workers bill through the Parliament, called trucking “the most visible sector for the exploitation of workers”.
She said it’s “really strange” that the Commission separated labour rules for truckers from the posting of workers bill. The executive proposed changes to the posting of workers directive last March, meaning drivers and freight companies may be in legal limbo if negotiations on the new trucking rules drag on much longer.
Jongerius suggested the Commission’s actions are driven by the rules it applied in its legal case against France and Germany’s minimum wage laws.
“I don’t think they [the Commission] take the safety and protection of people working in road transport as seriously as the internal market,” she told EurActiv.
Dearth of Road Haulage Drivers Blights Freight and Logistics Sector 
New Apprenticeship Scheme Makes a Start on Addressing the Balance
UK – Over the years, many vested road haulage industry interests have warned of chronic shortage of skilled workers in the UK's freight and logistics sector and with increasing pressures on the industry to deliver goods to increasingly tight timescales, the need for skilled HGV drivers only becomes more evident. The industry estimates that there could be up to 35,000 vacancies for trained operators across the country. To start addressing the problem, government funding to train up to 200 HGV drivers is being made available to Freight Transport Association (FTA) members through a new partnership with The Real Apprenticeship Company (TRAC).
Applications for funding will need to be made before the end of March 2017 and trainees enrolled by the middle of April. Learners need to be aged 23 or below and hold a Category B (car) driving licence before starting the course. Sally Gilson, Head of Skills Campaigning at the FTA said:
“This is a great opportunity for members to get free training for the drivers they are recruiting now. We are pleased to be able to offer this funding to members to help them tackle the persistent shortage of qualified HGV drivers."
A total fund of £1 million has been secured by TRAC and, depending on the training programmes selected by employers, this amount would be sufficient to fund up to 200 drivers through driving licence acquisition training. It is being offered to FTA members and covers the full cost of approved training to include Category C and potentially C+E driving licence acquisition.
This will be the last tranche of Government funding available that does not require a contribution from employers. Following the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in April 2017, the funding rules will change, meaning only the smallest operators will not be liable for a contribution fee. Pierre de Carteret, Chief Operating Officer at The Real Apprenticeship Company said:
“While there is currently a reduced appetite to commence training apprentices now, there is a very clear economic rationale for doing so. This is most definitely a case of use it or lose it and it’s extremely unlikely government will provide another funded opportunity like this again.”
Employers interested in taking up this opportunity should email
FTA@thereal.company. Funding will be allocated to qualifying employers and learners on a first-come-first-served basis.
