Sharp ■ Informed ■ Challenging
NEWS INSIDE
17.9.18
PREMIUM REDEFINED
Lights out
Principle Pallet’s dream over as it shuts up shop p3
Look, no mirrors
Tuffnells fined £1.5m after driver is crushed
Mercedes-Benz Actros sets new technological bar p6
Read all about it
Menzies Distribution under new management p8
DVSA job freeze DVSA chief executive Gareth Llewellyn has ordered a freeze on recruitment at the agency with immediate effect. In a letter to staff seen by MT he asks that all directors review their current and future vacancies and temporarily pause all recruitment except where an offer of employment has been made. Llewellyn said: “The DVSA is at risk of breaching its headcount target.”
Tuffnells Parcels Express, part of Connect Group, has been fined £1.5m after a driver died when he was trapped between a trailer and his vehicle. Dudley Magistrates’ Court heard how, on 22 January 2016, a Tuffnells Parcels Express employee was fatally injured while attempting to attach a trailer to his vehicle. The trailer was parked on a slight slope, which was enough to allow it to roll forward and trap him. An HSE investigation into the incident found safety management arrangements for coupling trailers to vehicles failed to take into account the slope. Tuffnells Parcels Express,
of Wallows Industrial Estate, Dudley, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act
1974 and was ordered to pay costs of more than £32,823. Following the hearing, HSE inspector Karl Raw said: “Had
Tuffnells taken the slope into account, simple measures could have been taken that would have prevented this incident. Workplace transport remains a high risk environment, and this case serves as a reminder to industry that assessments of sites should be specific and identify the hazards unique to each yard. “It is a reminder that the slope a vehicle is parked on does not need to be steep for incidents to occur. This was a tragic and avoidable incident, caused by the failure of the company to adopt robust management in planning and monitoring the workplace and workplace actions at this site.”
Next-day deliveries are in jeopardy post-Brexit if government does not confirm status of EU workers
Brexit threatens next-day services By Chris Tindall
Next-day deliveries are in danger of becoming a thing of the past unless certainty over the status of EU workers is provided by the government, the GMB union has claimed. The warning came as the union obtained figures from the Office for National Statistics that revealed a third of warehousing and storage workers are EU nationals. T he figures also show that EU nationals make up more than 20% of the workforce in 18 industries and that in the
Focus:
warehousing
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economy as a whole their share of the workforce rose to 7.6% in 2017, up from 7.2% the previous year. The GMB said employers needed to improve wages and conditions after Brexit or 21st-century comforts such as swift courier services would disappear. It said the findings would spark fears for the future of some industries if there is not certainty over the status of current EU workers and a clear plan for meeting the UK’s labour shortfalls after Brexit. The FTA agreed a lack
p10
LoCITY
lowdown
of clarity over the status of EU workers will jeopardise the resilience of the supply chain on which next-day deliveries depend. FTA head of skills campaigning Sally Gilson (left) said: “Employers need clarification on who they will be allowed to employ, and the work these staff will be eligible to undertake, now, rather than waiting until March 2019. “More than 113,000 EU workers are employed in warehousing positions, and with a significant shortage of available British staff to take up
p10
Profile:
Fraikin
these roles, it is clear that the logistics industry would be significantly affected. “In addition, these roles are not spread evenly across the country, making recruitment very difficult without the support of European employees.” The warning came in the wake of a second series of no-deal technical papers published last week that did not include the keenly awaited international haulage technical paper. In response, RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said: “Without clarity, any changes in supply chain operations cannot be delivered
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Tyres
p21
MT
between now and next March. With so many unanswered questions, how can businesses prepare?”
Awards
PREMIUM REDEFINED Pages 4–5
winners
p24-25
13/09/2018 16:47:16