Petrol Surcharge for Self Employed

Pugsy

Hi

My partner works for a courier company where all the drivers are self employed and own their own vans. We have just found out that the company is charging customers a 9% surcharge for petrol which is fine but......they are only paying the drivers 4%, surely as the company do not own any vehicles the whole of this surcharge should be passed onto the drivers?

Are the company acting illegally and how can we challenge them without my partner losing his job?

Also as a full time driver he is expected to be on call 24/7 but gets no money for being on call and is threatened with his job if he doesn't do it - after doing a 14 hour day he is expected to be on call anywhere in the country which means he could be out for hours then get home have 2 hours kip and expected to be in the office for 7am!!! Surely this is not legal either, lorry drivers have taco cards why do other drivers not have this?

Anyone have any ideas?

Mark_h_4

If its on a surcharge I'd think they'd be within their rights to take a cut of it? Im not sure how it works in petrol terms but I know when I worked for an ATM company that had surcharges on the machines the company took a percentage and gave the customer who owned the ATM the rest.

Dont quote me on that though im not an expert.

scheming_gypsy

As he's self employed he's his own boss and doesn't work for them so they can't threaten him with his job.

They can charge whatever surcharge they want to as that's an agreement between them and the client; the agreement between your other half and his client is that they get 4% although as he's self employed he should be able to claim the tax breaks on mileage.

bap98189

There is no legal requirement for what the company charges to be linked to what they pay their sub-contractors. The company can invoice their customers whatever amount of fuel surcharge they like, there is no requirement to pass this on.

Tachographs are only required to be fitted to vehicles over 3.5 tons. Most courier vehicles are vans which are below that weight limit.

TrickyWicky

I think the ohers have spoken for the fuel issue but the working hours is a serious one.

You can't be forced to work all sorts of stupid hours and if they don't like it then tough diddly, go and lookup the working time regulations. While this doesn't apply to the self employed, what the company are really doing is avoiding tax and pension liabilities. Difficult ground but a tip of the H&S folks could work wonders. Also anything in writing...

SHIPSHAPE

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

As he's self employed he's his own boss and doesn't work for them so they can't threaten him with his job.

Although they can threaten to not utilise him, thus no work, thus no money, essentially threatening his job.

Delivery firms are gangsters and they sub-contract to get out of employer responsibilites yet the driver is expected to adhere to rules & regulations as if he were employed.

They also squeeze every last drop of cash they can from the subby.

I'd anonymously contact a customer regarding this 9% surcharge and explain how customer & subby are being ripped off to kick up a great big stink.