Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Irish that for me a bit, Im in my D4 bubble and I go to my office park bubble, its only ever when I cycle to work I go through places like Drimnagh, Ballyfermot etc. I see the local kids there, call me a cynic or classist but the idea that they will in any numbers be off to Trinners wont be happening, but they certainly have a path to being useful to themselves and society if sectors like construction,logistics include proper training and upskilling. Yes there will be an explosion in AI, give it 10 years you will walk into tesco fill up your bags and simply walk out and the shelves will be restocked by robots, same with lower end restaurants. At the same time populations are naturally falling so the absolute numbers of people looking for work will drop too so should be scarce in theory. A robot cant do house or car repairs, farms and food production cant be totally run by robots though I think Japan may almost get there.

The issue is that the UK is running out of workers to these jobs today so the notion that robots will do it in 10 years is not helpful. Indeed it may be a pretty serious ring around the neck of those trying to get truck drivers. A lot of people expect automated driving to take off and lorry driving is the obvious first step there. It will take a lot of cash for people to train up in a job that might not be there in 10 years time when they are looking at career options. Of course this does not help the issue of getting goods on shelves tomorrow.

thats its own thread, i'd imagine there would be an enforced transition phase where trucks are automated but still has a driver or they are automated on motorways but drivers take control off them. I doubt truck driving is anyone's first career from school they might transition from the army, public transport, commercial vehicles, construction etc. pay enough and people will show up at your door, that's basic economic incentives. If you can go from 30K driving a London bus to 60-70K driving a rig people will change careers

Yes, it's just basic economics. I'm not sure how the Brexit fans are not aware that companies being forced to raise raise wages for their staff will have no choice but to raise their prices as well to compensate.

I still disagree with this. I see it a lot for the US and it never really holds water. Companies have a lot of inefficiency as is and plenty of money goes to bonuses etc. that can go first. Plus raising wages by say 20% does not mean a 20% increase in prices since it is far less than a 20% increase in total costs so even then a raise in wages won't see a ridiculous increase in prices. There will be some increase but not enough for me to be worried about that side of Brexit.

"Posted workers" is a thing. There's an obvious issue about whether I can recruit a worker in (say) Poland on a Polish employment contract at Polish rates of pay, and then post him to work in another member states where he will be either working alongside or competing with locally-recruited and employed workers who are getting local rates of pay. There is a framework for controlling and regulating this, and deciding whether and in what circumstances it is acceptable, in the Posted Workers Directives. Not saying that it's perfect, by any means, but the point is that it exists and the UK could, if it wished, have sought to get the matter of HGV drivers addressed through that framework, rather than by Brexiting.

Well, perhaps.

But the point to grasp here is that improved pay for UK lorry drivers doesn't come at the expense of the Polish, etc, drivers who are now excluded from the UK market, as a Brexit voter hoping for better pay might have assumed. It comes at the expense of UK businesses and their customers — many of whom may earn less than the lorry drivers.

What's happening here, in other words, is a transfer of wealth between different people in the UK. There isn't a net increase of wealth in the UK; in fact the opposite.

I'm not unsympathetic. But we need to think this through. If earning power is going to this group of people, who is it coming from? We know that it's coming from someone, given that there is no net increase of wealth here. And if we don't know the answer to the "who is paying for this?" question, then we cannot say that this shift in earning power is making the world a tiny bit more just; it may in fact be making it a tiny bit more unjust.

You and I might like to think that this increase in drivers' pay comes out of the pockets of the fatcat capitalist oppressors. But our liking to think this doesn't make it so. And, if we're honest, considering the context in which this is happening and the people who are driving it it is probably very unlikely that this is so because, if it were so, none of this would be happening, or at the very least it would be fairly rapidly reversed.

So I'm kind of sceptical that, if you dig into this, you'll find that the lorry drivers are gaining at the expense of the corporations. It will be just one group of workers being played off against another.

There are shortages in other countries, but the shortage is exacerbated in GB by Brexit, which (a) has excluded a significant number of previously active HGV operators from the UK market, and (b) has made HGV driving in the UK less attractive/remunerative even for those qualified to do it. Brexit-cause delays and congestion mean that journey times are longer, which means that drivers earn less, because they are paid by the kilometre, not by the hour.

It's really only in GB that the driver shortage has been severe enough to lead to supermarkets running out of produce items, pubs not having beer, filling stations closing, etc.

not everyone is a software engineer, there is a class thing going on here that you are papering over, why did brexit go through? because more people in the north of england (not software engineers) and I assume on lower pay felt disconnected and felt they had nothing to lose.

EU rules on cabotage restricts hauliers to a maximum of three cabotage operations within the seven day period following the delivery of an international load (Unlimited in the Single market).

Post Brexit limited to 1 in GB and 2 in NI

A journey to the GB by EU hauliers is now meaningless