Without relief in Valencian transport: "Young people do not want to work in the truck"

It is twelve noon and Vicente, Florencio and Pepe, among 14 other classmates, attend to the teacher in the classrooms of the training center of the Valencian Federation of Transport and Logistics Entrepreneurs (FVET).

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
18 October 2022 Tuesday 20:37
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Without relief in Valencian transport: "Young people do not want to work in the truck"

It is twelve noon and Vicente, Florencio and Pepe, among 14 other classmates, attend to the teacher in the classrooms of the training center of the Valencian Federation of Transport and Logistics Entrepreneurs (FVET).

He teaches a refresher course for truckers to which they, veterans of the truck, are required to renew their driving license. “I have five years left and I am retiring. Then to live”, says Pepe, sitting in the front row.

They openly talk about how hard life is in the truck. Entire weeks without seeing the family, impossible schedules and the rush of the boss who calls you: “'Are you here yet?' That, every five minutes, imagine”, comments Vicente, in the second row of the classroom and eager to explain himself. "Women now are also not like before," he blurts out. No, we ask. And he clarifies to explain that "previous generations did not work outside the home and swallowed all the housework by themselves, because we were not there."

“We have no quality of life. And although it is said that before we used to get paid a lot and we had houses and cars, that has gone downhill”, added other workers. "I would prefer to work less and charge less," adds a fourth carrier. They all agree to the comments of the rest and recognize, amid the noise of the commentary, that thanks to mobile phones they can be distracted during the stops by reading the newspaper or talking with the family on a video call. "Luck on the phone!" they snap.

Among the new drivers it is easy to find ex-soldiers who have sought a second professional opportunity after seeing that they could not grow up in the Army, former construction employees or, in the least of cases, some driver's son who has always sucked the trade . And everything, in the masculine gender, because when asked if women have a presence in the sector… “There are some, but they are very few. How are they going to want to live with these schedules? It is very difficult”, adds Juan Ortega. In the training courses given at the center the statistics are clear, explains Carlos Noguera, head of Training at the center: “I only have two women each year”.

“The laws have also not helped us at all to reconcile. It is the great handicap of this profession, people do not want to be a driver because they do not have time for their personal lives”, says Ortega, who also teaches classes at the training center. Nearly 500 carriers pass through here every year, from those who get the Certificate of Professional Aptitude (CAP) for the first time to those who have to recycle it or renew their skills in matters such as, for example, the transport of dangerous goods. There are more centers, but in all of them the cost of training is also an element to be taken into account, since the driving license and the Certificate of Professional Aptitude cost nearly 4,000 euros.

"The students who come are not so much to start, because there are few new ones, but rather to renew what they already know, so we do more work to raise awareness of the new realities because driving has changed a lot in recent years" explains Noguera. Examples are the talks they give about the effects of alcohol, about responsible driving, fatigue or stress, a problem that, she points out, has increased a lot with the rise of electronic commerce.

"Transportation is being updated a lot but the truck driver suffers a lot of stress", he acknowledges. “People want everything from today to now. I think he will be one of the most stressful professions today; the roads are full and the schedules are getting shorter and shorter”, adds Ortega.

The reflection is valid both for the final consumer and for the client company, since he criticizes that many have made unloading schedules much more rigid and that has a great impact on the carrier's working day and on the costs for his company. “No one thinks about the carrier, no one reflects on what we have to charge. It is a much reviled profession”, maintains the vice president of the Federation.

If we go back to the classroom, the carriers claim that they charge less than before and that their conditions are worse. Juan Ortega, who was also a driver and is now a businessman with 60 employees, says that he knows that conditions can be improved, that he "fights every day to improve them." Last year there was a salary increase of 6.5% agreed in the collective agreement, but nobody expected this rise in the CPI. "And the worst of all is that the CPI is so high because of transportation, because it is impossible to cover expenses," says Juan Ortega.