Mandag 24. august 2020 kl: 10:51

“In the first weeks of Covid-19, me and my colleagues got in an employer’s minibus from Romania to the Netherlands where we have our base to start working. We were not allowed to cross the Romanian–Hungarian border because of Covid-19. We have tried it two times. The company cut our salary and after I requested my pay, I was fired.” 


Driver from Belarus, stated:

“I’m employed in Lithuania and drive a Lithuanian truck. Ninety percent of the time I do cabotage operations inside of Germany and break the cabotage rules. During the few months on the road, I only received a few hundred Euros per month, just enough to survive and buy food.”


Filipino driver stated:

“During Covid-19 me and my colleagues are doing transports in Western Europe. But our employer tells us that he cannot pay our salaries because his invoices are not being paid by the operator we work for.”


An Eastern European company sent a statement to its drivers, explaining the temporary measures it was taking during the Covid-19 crisis:

“I’m reaching out to all drivers, hoping for your understanding. For the duration of the worldwide epidemic, a driver’s salary will be reduced. As from 1 April, a driver’s salary will be €1,300. A co-drivers salary remains unchanged. This applies for the duration of the epidemic only. There is less work every day, transport prices are going down, and lorries are standing idle. We’re driving for any money to keep going during this diffcult time. Anyone who wants to, can go home on leave at his own expense until this epidemic ends.” 


Driver from Uzbekistan is employed by an Eastern European subsidiary of a German logistics company with thousands of trucks, stated:

“My employer forces me to use tachograph cards of other drivers to manipulate driving and resting time. If we are out of driving time someone from the French or German of ce will come to a parking area to hand out the cards we must use.”


Asian driver was employed in Slovakia but drove his truck in Western Europe, subcontracted by several logistics companies from the West. He has now been recognised as a victim of human trafficking in a Western European country:

“I lived for months in my truck and did not receive my salary. I was stopped on the road in [country redacted] and the company was penalised. The company did not want to pay the penalty and left me in the truck parking area for several days. Later on the employer came in the middle of the night, pulled me out of my truck and put a Serbian driver in the truck to replace me. I was left in the parking area in the rain, in the middle of the night.”


Ukrainian driver explained:

Interesserede kan læse mere i ITF-rapporten “Pandemic of exploitation in European Trucking - VNB-ITF-IUF Report on European road transport”  - klik her: