In the section ‘Unexpected encounters’ of Truck & Business we bring two people from a different world together. In this case it is actually the same world, but both on a different side: trade unionist Frank Moreels (BTB-ABVV) and entrepreneur Bert Vandecaveye (Tailormade Logistics).
Truck & Business: What was your first reaction when you learned that the ‘unexpected encounter’ with Bert Vandecaveye would be?
Frank Moreels: I really didn’t think anything special about it, because it is not a special meeting for me. I mean: as a syndicalist you often speak with employers. It is often pretended that we are enemies from each other, but I have a different vision about that. Sometimes it can clash, while we often have the same interests. We are actually insufficient to defend those common interests together to the outside world.
T&B: And what was your first reaction, Bert?
Bert Vandecaveye: I also had no exceptional feeling. I am actually a ‘social liberal’. Social consultation is part of our activity. I do not experience consultation with the unions as a contradictory. I think we can benefit from it together. That of course does not mean that I agree with everything.
F. Moreels: There are many more things we can agree on than the other way around. We should articulate that more together. There are things about which we have a different vision, but that does not have to prevent us from defending those common points together. I am very concrete about the relationship with the political world.
T&B: Why?
F. Morals: I feel that in politics people really do not understand what is going on in the transport sector and that measures must be taken to adjust this.
Social dumping
Take the social dumping. There are gangsters in the transport sector that do things that absolutely cannot do. The majority of companies – yours and many others – are, just like us, indignant about what is happening. We would be much stronger if we were allowed to go to the political world together to bring this story.
B. Vandecaveye: What you write in your open letter is correct. We also regularly experience the consequences of social dumping. We have lost contracts because we are 30% more expensive than carriers who do not play the game correctly. These are often Dutch carriers with an Eastern European office who work with interim companies with, for example, Indian drivers. I have already spoken to them myself. Those people are very satisfied, because they earn 1200 euros net per month, which is four times more than what they earn in India. They were very friendly and I can’t tell anything wrong about it.
But those practices do destroy the market. I therefore understand very well that a company itself goes to the trade union. Social dumping is a distortion of competitive. Unfortunately, they are the order of the day today.
We are asset-based. We have our own drivers and our own trucks, but many large companies work with subcontractors.
F. Morals:… and subcontractors of subcontractors of subcontractors.
B. Vandecaveye: Indeed. The more such complex constructions pop up, the harder it becomes to see how the fork is in the stem. This of course puts a huge pressure on the rates. Certain players offer prizes that are up to 20 to 30% below the market average. While companies that work according to the rules have to do with margins of barely 1 to 2%.
F. Morals: That is why we have to go to the government together so that the Belgian companies would be supported. They would be helped enormously if the chaff was separated from the wheat. By organizing very targeted checks to purify the tamperers. That would be in our interest.
B. Vandecaveye: I understand that. We are almost weekly subject to checks on the most diverse aspects of our operation. But the same control intensity is unfortunately not equally strict everywhere in Europe.
The introduction of the Mobility Package initially caused great unrest. Many companies with operational seats in countries such as Romania and Bulgaria have moved their activities to Germany or Luxembourg, or again centralized in Belgium. This has led to a significant decrease in the classic forms of social dumping.
Yet, despite the regulations, certain structures continue to exist. In recent years, a much more aggressive model has emerged in which foreign branches and cheap temporary workers from third countries are once again being exerted on social standards in our sector.
More checks please!
T&B: What can it be done against it?
F. Morals: Send ten inspectors on the track every weekend in logistics hotspots, check for the driving and rest times, check for the return obligation of the driver and you will create money. That will have two effects. The Belgian state will be good and that will have a deterrent effect.
But then the amount of the fines must be considerably higher. If you take a violation of the driving and rest times, it is now around 1500 euros. Make 15,000 euros out of it! Check 200 parked trucks every weekend, knowing that there will be at least 50% in violation. Revenue: 1.5 million euros per weekend.
If we use this money to support bona fide Belgian companies, then we also suddenly offer oxygen to our transport sector. We hear from many Belgian companies – also big, I will not mention names – that it is no longer possible.
T&B: Is that so?
B. Vandecaveye: Absolutely. It is becoming increasingly difficult to continue working profitably in a correct and transparent way. The margins are paper thin, which means that companies are constantly forced to go to the limits of what is legally and operational feasible. It is a continuous search for a balance between compliance, efficiency and competitiveness.
F. Morals: That is why it is incomprehensible that the government does nothing to protect transport companies that are still located here, have their ‘vans’ here, recruiting here. If these are foreign drivers with a contract to Belgian standards, we have no problem with it. But interim offices who work with people from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Kenya and you name it, that is not possible …
The government does nothing against those interim offices. Those drivers just drive around here, often can hardly have any English. Do they mean, for example, the safety regulations? Do they have a ‘code 95’ or have they bought it somewhere on the black market?
You cannot say that “the trade unions are overdoing again” when employers come to my desk asking to help them. Then you know that there is a problem …
T&B: But who should intervene?
F. Morals: The powers are spread over such a lot of cabinets and such a lot of power levels that we really have a problem. In addition, a large piece is regionalized. But I have hope. We recently met Rob Beenders who is federally responsible for the fight against fraud. He had ear to what we told him.
B. Vandecaveye: We are also present in other countries. In France, for example, they check much harder and much more complete, both on the companies and on the track. So it’s possible. And if a fine is issued, you must pay immediately or your truck is blocked.
F. Morals: But there the control services have a police authority. They may verbalize. Not with us. The government should therefore not only increase the fines considerably, but also give the inspectors police authority. Because today too much of those fraudsters can spring the dance.
Hypocrisy
T&B: Do the clients also bear any responsibility?
B. Vandecaveye: That is obvious. It is crisis and our customers also have a hard time. They must save costs. But that should not be a reason to work with those rogue companies.
F. Moreels: Many large groups are proud that they are socially sustainable, do not allow child labor, and so on. But in the transport area they refuse to take their responsibility. They look away when their transporters outsource the work to subcontractors who are illegal.
B. Vandecaveye: One of our customers was a large company for whom we had signed an ethical charter. Yet we lost it as a customer because he chose a transporter who was much cheaper thanks to those illegal practices. The rules are clear, there are no gray zones. Make them comply with! Because the bona fide companies are the victim of … The wave of bankruptcy in the Belgian transport sector is proof of this.
F. Moreels: The problem is that these new illegal constructions are particularly rendering. It is a very extensive and in -depth system that exploits masses of drivers from third countries. That must be stopped as soon as possible. Otherwise the transport sector will be completely broken …
Out of the lines
Our discussion partners draw notes with questions that have nothing to do with transport or economy.
The book that marks me the most …
Eg: ‘All the blue of heaven’ by Melissa da Costa. A beautiful book about a young guy who only has a few months to live and goes on a walk.
FM: ‘The grief of Belgium’ by Hugo Claus. I’ve read it four times.
I can’t do a day without …
BV: Coffee. In the morning it gives me a boost.
FM: me too. Preferably with the newspaper.
As a child I wanted …
FM: become a sculptor. Maybe I will be after my retirement.
Eg: become a windsurfer. By the way, it didn’t matter much or I became a professional windsurfer.
