Who is out of order here?

[fornical]

I run a healthy meal delivery company. I have several delivery drivers, however, having an issue with one in particular. My delivery drivers are self employed. Deliveries happen on a Saturday.

Long story short, I've had one of my delivery drivers for over a year now. I pay her £10 per hour and 45 pence per mile. She drives from Essex to London to collect the deliveries then back to Essex to deliver them every Saturday. She arrives to collect them at 9 am.

I text her asking for the next six weeks if she could be at pick up point at 8 am rather than 9 am.

She replied - 'See to be honest, it’s unsociable hours with it being so early at the weekend and having to get Amelia out of bed etc. I’d have to put my price up to £15 per hour. Let me know if you would be happy to go ahead with that or not. If you can’t though don’t worry I understand, It just means I’ll have to be getting up at 6.30 on a Saturday and my daughter too. Just wouldn’t be worth my while for tenner an hour xx'

AIBU to think this is totally unreasonable and out of the blue? How did she jump from £10 an hour to £15 because I asked her to come in one hour earlier. Am I being unreasonable?

Of course he tries to get jobs on the way back, it's just sensible. But you can bet anything his jobs are not priced at £10 per hour. He will be charging enough to cover costs and fuel and the time needed for the job assuming he doesn't get a trip back.

Am I missing something? I thought no-one gets paid until they get to the office/work place..? Otherwise we would all get paid the minute our alarms went off ? You have a start work time no matter where you live and it’s your responsibility to be at work for that time. You don’t have to take that job if you want something more local.

That is correct for location-based work; but it's completely different for driving/delivery jobs. There's no such thing as a local driving job, unless it's delivering within a very small area, such as a milk round.

Would you expect lorry drivers to only be paid for the outward leg of their deliveries, but not for returning back to the depot? Not to mention expecting them to provide their own lorry.

I know taxi drivers nowadays only charge for your actual journey, but the prices they charge are based on including their costs to get to you - and they usually only work within a certain radius, where they can often get a fare going the other way as well anyway.

The crux of it is she's driving for 5 1/2 hrs and being paid £40 plus low mileage for only part of the hours. Leaving early in the morning. She gets no paye, holiday, sick pay or pension. Its not an appealing offering.

If you employed someone local to collect and drive to Essex and back you'd have to pay the hourly rate and mileage both ways. You're paying as little as possible and your employee feels under valued. If you can get reliable staff at the current rate thats fine, if not maybe counter offer £12.50 or £13.

I think her reply is pretty reasonable OP. Changing your arrangement will be disruptive to her but she's prepared do it for extra money or don't and carry on at £10 an hour

The ignorance here about worker exploitation is mind-blowing.

I think that’s a big change in terms of start time. You may think ‘oh it’s only an hour’ but with a small child getting to London from Essex by 9am on a weekend is just about doable. Changing that so she has to be out of the house by 6.30 is a big change and clearly not appealing to her for the rate you pay.

I’m with her and you seem to have down played this change in hours. ‘Oh it’s just an hour’ without understanding the huge impact on her.

I think it matters whether you follow the Working Time Directive or not because travel time, i.e. the time spent from the employees home and their place of work, could be considered as working time.

www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/article/2015/eu-level-ecj-rules-that-travel-time-is-treated-as-working-time

@AnnoyedFromSlough that's why I said etc.

Minimum wage is a shameful amount to pay

Indeed. When you pay minimum wage, you're telling somebody that you value them and thus want to pay them less than that (who knows just how low?), but the law has to step in and prevent you from doing so, as they acknowledge that your desire is officially shameful. Kind of like an ongoing employment equivalent of when OFSTED has to put badly-run schools into special measures.

How you can look somebody in the eye to tell them that, much less expect any feelings of loyalty or employee satisfaction, is completely beyond me.

If she can’t afford to pay people a decent wage then she shouldn’t be in a business that she needs others to help her. She could always do the deliveries herself.

Its mind blowing that you think it’s acceptable that just because she is a small business owner that she should be able to pay people so little to help benefit her business.

Actually, @User8646382 , there is no information from the OP as to how profitable her business is. One suspects, however, that she is charging a premium for the quality of her meals. If she isn't, then she needs to re-think her pricing model.

On the other hand, there is ample information from the OP to suggest she's diddling her drivers.

That's why my response basically was to say "if you're making decent profits, then pay your drivers a decent rate".

It's another matter if the business is struggling.

Cross-posted with @Forestwalks

One suspects, however, that she is charging a premium for the quality of her meals.

I can't see why you'd go to the effort of supplying customers so far away, if you weren't charging quite a premium. Standard takeaways often aren't cheap and even they usually only deliver within a 2 or 3 mile radius.

I wish people would read the thread. OP isn’t paying a wage. She is saying that they are self employed, you do not pay wages to self employed. That is like me saying I pay the plumber a wage. I don’t, I pay what he tells me to pay, he sets the rate, I either agree to it or not.

I do think OP is shamefully exploiting these drivers however. Because on the one hand she seems to think they are employees, in that she thinks it is up to her to set the hours and the rate.

But on the other hand she shirks all her employer responsibilities such as paying employer NI, pension, holiday pay, sick pay, provisions of tools. Unfortunately not everybody understands the rules of employment / self employment and so this disgusting exploitation continues and she actually has the cheek to moan about it.

Quite...

You are paying peanuts.....go out and find yourself a monkey.

Would you expect lorry drivers to only be paid for the outward leg of their deliveries, but not for returning back to the depot? Not to mention expecting them to provide their own lorry.

A lot of construction drivers are owner/operators. At our local Tarmac and nearby quarry all drivers provide own truck. You'd be paid for full journey after you got to site but not got the commmute.

But of course these guys are making hundreds a day.

OP isn’t paying a wage. She is saying that they are self employed, you do not pay wages to self employed. That is like me saying I pay the plumber a wage. I don’t, I pay what he tells me to pay, he sets the rate, I either agree to it or not

That is exactly how it should work. But it very much sounds like in this case, op is setting the rate and is very unhappy about it going the other way.

When the 16 year olds who usually work in my Aunt’s takeout are doing exams, I’m paid £10/hour for standing still for 5 hours answering a phone. £10 is a decent wage for a 16 year old, no qualifications at all, no skills required. £10/hour for driving a car is not enough. Yes you are being unreasonable but not for this incident, for the general wage you pay.

Yes you can by paying her a better hourly rate.

She’s self employed, she can charge whatever she wants and also £10ph is not a good wage, especially for someone who has no contract, no holiday pay and no sick pay. From April min wage is £10:42ph for employees, who also have the benefit of 5.6 weeks paid holiday and possibly sick pay, maternity pay etc on top, plus pension contributions. So in reality, you paying her £10 works out at much less that £10ph.

Pahahahahahahaha. What you really want is someone to do it for free

Just because it's not minimum doesn't mean it isnt a s&*t wage

Because minimum wage is not a living wage with inflation, across the board, the way it is these days. £15 ph is a good wage, £20 would be brilliant.

Exactly 👍