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?

When people employ drivers for their business but on a self employed badis there are several advantages for the business employing them. That is why this arrangement is made. However that makes it just as reasonable for them to set out their terms as it is for you to do so. You consider the proposed rose unreasonable. She doesn't. You are free to accept the terms, refuse them or make a lower compromise offer. I would think that the extra fiver would be reasonable for the one earlier hour but not a 50% rise for all day.
Having said that I think £10 an hour for an all day driving job is quite low ...especially in the South. Everything is negotiable,, for both of you. Could you get someone as trustworthy and reliable for your price if she leaves? Could she fairly easily find better paid work or same pay with hours which suit her better.? My gut feeling is she probably could and you might find it takes a bit of trial and error to get a good replacement on what you are currently paying.

I'm sure I read correctly that when the minimum wage goes up in April to £10.42 that if you are employing someone who is self employed then you don't have to match this. I think this is unfair for self employed workers.

Is this correct?

I'm not self employed.

That’s absolutely no excuse to take advantage of someone. The law isn’t “if you earn under £x you don’t pay tax and NI so it’s ok for you to be paid less than minimum”

Is that was PP was meaning? I understood it as a response to those smugly saying that the driver would be avoiding paying tax, so she wasn't so exploited and hard-up after all.

The fact is that, if this is her only job, she will be legally avoiding tax & NI - because she earns too little to need to pay them!

We try to get together on my mum's anniversary, there are 5 of us with families and jobs to consider. As many of us as possible make an effort to do something, I couldn't make it during lockdown for the first time which was very hard as it was just a hard time anyway. Then 2 years ago I'd just had a baby, last year I'd just finished mat leave. Stuff gets in the way. My brother went through a divorce, my sister had several babies, another sister travels for work etc. If you can loosely plan and noone gets annoyed when life gets in the way it's nice to mark a date I think.

It definitely wouldn't bother anyone if someone's partner didn't come (nor when 1 of the 5 of us has had commitments either) but partner have not attended for work reasons, health reasons, golf reasons over the years and noone would blink.

Basically I think your sil is being unreasonable. Now if your dh really wanted you there I'd say there would be a discussion to be had with him about supporting him in grieving but his sister? Nonsense.

Wrong thread, no idea how that happened

£10 an hour for any employee is taking the mick, for a driver employee it’s robbery, for a self employed person it’s downright exploitation.

100% this.

You are well and truly in the wrong. If you can't see this OP you need to have a word with yourself

£10 per hour

Are you serious? Definitely put it ip at least to £12.50 by way of compromise

Look up the London Living Wage

@Straggletag

Totally agree

You're lucky to have her OP

if they are self employed you are expecting them to pay national insurance and regular insurance and maintain their cars with petrol etc for £10.00 plus 45p a mile? Have you seen the increased cost of living going on around you?

Minimum wage for anyone is before tax & NI - although as stated above, as self employed, she isn't getting holiday or pension (though an employed person on minimal hours is likely to be below the autoenrollment threshold as well).
You've asked her to change, for whatever reason that works less well for her, and she wants to make the change worth her while.
Why do you need the change, what's it worth to you?
Negotiate, find a new driver or do it yourself.

What are your profit margins like because if you pay more to one driver then the others will expect more? I suggest that you offer to pay a bonus rather than an extra hourly rate but you can haggle the amount. If you can't agree a figure then you will have to find someone else, they may not be happy to accept £10ph and may not be as reliable. Hourly rates differ from area to area too. In my area cleaners expect a minimum of £15ph and supply their own materials etc. In others it's £12 so I think you need to consider reviewing hourly rates especially as the minimum rate will be £10.20ph for an adult from 1 April. This is the joys of running your own business!

This. I agree with this

Her place of work is Essex where she makes her deliveries. The OP requires her (as part of her job) to travel into London to collect the food to deliver as part of (all of) her job. Therefore, rather than being a commute, the drive to London and back is part of her employment. The OP should be paying time and mileage both ways plus congestion charge.

I have a job in City A. My employer recently required me to travel to London to collect paperwork. They recorded all of my time both ways and paid my train ticket (so my expenses were actually covered rather than me getting 45p per mile which everyone accepts doesn’t pay for the actual cost of travel these days).

If OP doesn’t want to pay her delivery driver for driving both ways, there is nothing to stop her arranging to have the meals driven to a central delivery point in Essex and having the driver collect them from there. Of course the person driving to Essex would expect to be paid.

Also, since the OP is setting the rates and the times of delivery, I strongly suspect the driver is a misclassified employee. Deliveroo and the other food delivery apps manage to classify people as self employed by letting them work when they like. The OP doesn’t do that.

For you, maybe. For her the hour makes a big difference, with small children it often does. I would nto want to wake my toddlers up at 6am on a Saturday out of all days!

YABU she can ask for whatever wage she thinks is fair, and you can decline. Weird that you think she is being unreasonable

deliveroo is offering £13 ph so yeas £10ph is not a good wage especially for London.

deliveroo is offering £13 ph so yeas £10ph is not a good wage especially for London.

Presumably that's all within your locality and not expecting you to travel (unpaid) to a restaurant two hours away to collect the food before delivering it near to where you live?

And asking her to pick up an hour earlier seems like it's quite a jump for her because it means she has to make different arrangements for her daughter in order to accommodate what you're asking for. You didn't say how old her daughter is, but I'm guessing she has to get her up because she needs to either take her with her or take her to whoever takes care of her while she's working. So now she has to adjust that schedule which her daughter may have a hard time adjusting to depending on how old she is. That's not at all unreasonable.

Remember she's a contractor, not an employee. She's technically a business offering a service to you. So she can set her terms for what she gets paid. And her reasons for it seem fair. You're asking her to do something that requires more effort on her part. So she based her new pay rate on that. Of course, you can choose to find a different driver if you don't like the terms, but don't get upset because she wants to be paid more.

I would say you're the one who is being a bit unreasonable here. Her text to you was very polite and professional. She gave fair reasons why 8 am is harder for her. But she seems willing to work with you. She simply countered your request for an earlier pickup time with a higher pay rate. There's nothing wrong with that.

It makes me so sad that there are working mums out there so desperate they completely get taken advantage of by employers like you OP. I hope she sees sense and realises that you not paying her for the round trip is disgusting. Good luck finding someone else as desperate for you to take advantage of.

£10 an hour is hardly worth her while.

Also an hour out of bed earlier is actually a lot if you’re an exhausted mum which she more than probably is

YABU national living wage is about to become £10.50. You’re paying barely above minimum right now. The mileage only covers fuel and wear and tear so you can’t count that towards take home pay.

As it’s Saturday today I wonder if the OP will return to share what happened with this morning’s delivery.

Jesus! So she does all of this for you, for £40? I pay my cleaner more per hour.

It's not so much about the jump in wages. If you look at it that way, it does seem like a hike.
It's about being a fair employer. And £10 ph is not a fair wage irrespective of whether it's legal or not.

You should also be paying for the drive to London from Essex. If you need someone to take goods from London to Essex, you will either need someone based in London or someone based in Essex. This means one will either need to come to you from Essex or come back to London at the end of the shift. Either way, that time should be paid.

I certainly wouldn't take this job.