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?

if it’s only one hour early that she has to disrupt her family maybe then you could do it herself ?

my cleaner earns more than your driver and risks her life less.

She’s been doing you a favour all this time to be honest. £10 if she has to pay taxes etc out of it is not a good wage

How much money do you think this poor woman makes selling healthy meals? Barely enough to pay her drivers £10 an hour (plus on costs), I bet, never mind about £15.

The ignorance on here about small business owners is mind-blowing.

I would find another driver that's nearer to you to be honest.

This is completly fair! I don't get paid for my journey to work. If you work for the council, nhs, any retailer then you do not get paid for your drive to work. Not sure why people think you are exploiting people.

But they would still have to drive London-Essex-London rather than the existing Essex-London-Essex. No difference in time or distance, but it would be harder to 'justify' ripping somebody off as OP is currently doing if their start and finish place is local.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that OP could be telling herself that the woman lives a distance away, so it's her fault/liability that she has a lengthy 'commute' - except it isn't a commute at all, as there's no way it could be shortened wherever she moved to. If you worked at one building, you could theoretically move into a house next door and then never have any commute at all. The very nature of a driving job means that you are forced to travel - not chiefly to get yourself to where the job is, but to pick up the goods (or passengers) from the start point and then get them to the delivery point(s).

If somebody is employed to regularly drive a Ginsters lorry from Cornwall to Aberdeen and back, would you really treat it that only the outward leg is 'work' and the other is just them coming back home, so it should be at their own expense?

I totally agree with her. £10 an hour is pretty poor for someone that’s self employed, she gets no holiday pay, pension, sick pay etc.

if she’s reliable I’d pay the extra, it’s so hard to get good staff these days.

Is driving your job though @fornical ?

collecting the goods, then delivering them is this woman’s job. It’s not about her getting to work, that is her work. Driving.

By the way, the driver’s income will be propped up by universal credit. I bet the driver makes more than the business owner.

Tough! She has made a choice to run a business and hire people to help her. That gives her responsibility to not be an arsehole and treat people fairly.

The other option is to do all the work herself.

I’ve run a small business for 25 years @User8646382 so I’m hardly ignorant. But a business that can’t pay the equivalent of minimum wage to its workforce shouldn’t be in business. If the op chooses to work for so little it’s up to her. As it is this driver. Who will undoubtedly vote with her feet. Quite rightly too.

If everyone thought like that there would be no businesses left.

I don’t think anyone is out of order. The new start time is more inconvenient for her and her family so she’s opened negotiations. You either say no, agree or meet half way. It’s a business discussion and she’s entitled to ask just as you’re entitled to say no. Normal business negotiations.

She’s paying over minimum wage.

How do you know the business owner isn’t being propped up by universal credit too?

also not being funny but universal credit expects people on low incomes to increase their wages, so the driver isn’t doing anything wrong by asking for a pay rise

More than she should be, and frankly she’s going to be undercutting ethical small businesses that aren’t exploiting others to cut costs and maximise profits.

It’s shit pay and having to drag herself and her kids out of bed an hour earlier for shit pay on a Saturday has probably tipped them over the edge. Reliable employees are worth the money OP

No she’s not.

How dare she when she is getting a whole 82p more than minimum wage. We’re conditioned to shitty wages in the UK.

OP you are absolutely ripping the piss.

So OP is using our taxes to make herself a bigger profit by underpaying drivers, and this is good for society how exactly?

How much money do you think this poor woman makes selling healthy meals? Barely enough to pay her drivers £10 an hour (plus on costs), I bet, never mind about £15.

The ignorance on here about small business owners is mind-blowing.

Whatever she makes or doesn't make is not relevant to this issue. If the business isn't making enough to cover all reasonable costs (including fair remuneration for workers), then it simply isn't a viable business.

You can't artificially balance the books by expecting somebody to subsidise you/the business - it's not like when you're 6 and you make extra pocket money by selling your Mum & Dad lemonade that they already bought in the first place.

At any rate, it's clearly not a tiny little concern if it covers such a distance. Why would OP have sought/accepted customers in Essex - and the associated travel costs - in the first place, if the company can't afford the delivery costs? The vast majority of small businesses (apart from those that post things out ad-hoc using a third-party courier like RM or DPD) rely on a local customer base. If the product is sufficiently in demand, surely there must be a decent pool of potential customers in London?!

A 50% rise is ridiculous.

Min wage is 9.50 (going up in april to 10.40)that's still not good enough with all the price hikes!!!

No small business selling healthy meals could afford to pay delivery drivers £15 an hour. She could deliver the food herself, sure. But who would cook it/take the orders, etc.

I own a nursery. I would love to pay my staff £20 an hour. I couldn’t do it without charging the parents triple the amount. No nursery owner could. What do you think the parents would say if I told them the fees were going up by 300%? The principle is the same, except it doesn’t affect you directly so you can afford to express faux outrage.

She isn’t getting a wage though, she is self employed, so paying her own NI, pension, covering her own sick pay and holiday pay.

As she is self employed, she gets to set the rate, she gets to choose her hours. If OP doesn’t like it then she needs to find some one else who is willing to accept the rate she is willing to pay.

Or perhaps OP needs to consider whether she actually should be employing the drivers, because she seems to think it is ok to treat them like employers, other than when it comes to meeting her exp player obligations.

My god. I don’t know why anyone works for you at all. £10ph, no holiday or sick pay and using her own vehicle! She’s mad to do that.

*like employees other than when it comes to meeting her employer obligations

that should have said