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First of all i am new to this site and would just like to say Hi to everyone.
The background to my question is - We are in a recession,this has resulted in a massive reduction in numbers of fares. In my locality you can now work for 10 hrs and earn as little as £100.00 around £50.00 of this goes towards the cost of your vehicle and PDA rental (owner driver) leaving you with earnings lower than the minimum wage.
My question is (A) Does the operator who takes money from you for your PDA have a Duty of Care to in return provide you with enough work to earn a living wage without working excessive hours.
(B) Does the local authority have the same duty of care to those drivers possibly by ensuring that (A) The number of vehicles allowed on an operators licence is restricted (B) The number of actual operators licences are restricted.
I appreciate i may hear gasps of shock at the thought of a reduction of drivers but all those i speak to are suffering and if some sort of action is not taken this will eventually impact on health and safety.

Hi

I think you may need to do a bit of research on this. If i remember rightly there have been some instances where taxi companies have been prosecuted for failing to ensure their drivers earn national minimum wage. I'm sure there was at least one company in Birmingham.

You will need to talk to your local inland revenue office who are the people who enforce national minimum wages. It's all to do with the way the system is set up. If there are restriction on when you can work such as times you're are allowed to log onto the system then the tax people may decide you are not really 'self employed' because you don't control your own working hours. this then brings you under NMW legislation.

you need to speak to your local tax office and let them know your specific details to see if you are classed as self employed or not.

Kevin

Hi Kevin
thanks for that info I will look further into it need to do a few more checks on earnings against hrs worked. There is a lot of I'll feeling here across the drivers with more and more vehicles being placed on the operators licence. Your right in saying that more investigation is required. As far as the minimum wage is concerned we should be in a position where we can earn much more than that.
Does anyone else out there have any info regarding the same