Some wake up and look at WhatsApp.
José Rey opens WTransnet.
His life depends on this application that is like the stock market for truckers.
On the screen of his mobile, the loads available in Europe are updated to the minute along with the origin, destination and price.
This Monday at noon there were 59,567 offers available.
I work too much.
The problem is that the vast majority are very poorly paid.
When he's not out on the road, Rey spends "the whole holy day" on the phone, looking for a decent charge on that app: "Maybe I can make 50 or 60 calls."
The idea of the truck driver as a salaried worker in a factory was long ago displaced by that of the self-employed person who must make a living.
Some still have regular customers;
many others work as nomads, with a course and schedule that depends on the best deals on their phone.
These new platforms have streamlined merchandise traffic, but truckers blame them for having facilitated the work of
brokers
or speculators who profit from buying and reselling the offers.
In this free market, prices have become cheaper.
As the trucking sector is hyper-atomized, there is always someone in need who accepts loads that barely cover the cost.
“It is very easy to abuse someone who is hungry,” laments José Rey, a 47-year-old trucker from Coruña who works autonomously with his Ford F Max truck, for which he paid 104,000 euros.
He is supporting the strike of transporters that this Tuesday turned 15 days.
Diesel subsidies have not convinced many truckers who complain of much deeper evils, such as that of intermediaries.
The truck driver José Rey in front of a trailer during a protest this Monday in Santiago de Compostela.Óscar Corral
The Transport Minister, Raquel Sánchez, promised on Friday that before July 31 she will present a bill that will include measures to "ensure a fair use of subcontracting."
That promise satisfied the employers' associations that negotiate with the Government in the official dialogue body, the National Committee for Road Transport, but it has not been enough for the Transport Sector Defense Platform association to call off the strikes.
This madness has been brought to the US on the television screen:
Shipping Wars
.
This
reality-type series,
broadcast between 2012 and 2015, showed how a downward auction takes place in the uShip application, one of the most used.
"Every time I win an auction, it's like I hit the jackpot," says an American trucker happily after offering to work for less than anyone else.
race against the clock
As this Monday there was still a shortage of truckers, prices were higher than usual.
Trucker King opens WTransnet to show how it works, and within an hour he receives almost 20 calls from desperate bidders.
He ignores them all out of respect.
Last Tuesday he saw on WTransnet a charge for 2,200 euros between Madrid and A Coruña, a trip that included an escort by a private security company to dissuade the pickets.
The kilometer of that trip was paid at 3.7 euros, while under normal conditions it is common to see offers for 0.7 euros/km that barely cover the cost of diesel.
It would have been made of gold.
Autonomous carriers pay for access to WTransnet.
Rey sees it as the quota that could be dedicated to Netflix or Movistar.
"Instead of paying to watch football matches, I dedicate 842 euros a year to this."
What they find in the application is similar to a souk.
Usually, factories or stores that need to move merchandise turn to large carriers to order tens or hundreds of trucks.
These companies don't transport that cargo on their own because they don't have enough trucks.
For this reason, they take the opportunity to resell these freights in this or other applications, an intermediary activity that can be much more lucrative than their main transport business.
The self-employed trucker who hires that load by clicking on the screen does not know how many hands that offer has passed or how much the company that owns the products pays.
That is to say, they do not know how much the sum is from which they would benefit in a market without mediators.
Sometimes they find out about that amount by accident.
Rey was outraged when one day he saw that in the loading order they had mistakenly put the figure originally paid by the loading company, which needed to move two huge granite polishing machines.
“I traveled from Barcelona to A Coruña for 1,100 euros, but the original price of 1,500 euros appeared.
Someone had kept 400 euros”, says Rey.
Another popular app is Amazon Relay, which is used by the carriers of the online sales giant.
Florin Bosnea, a 29-year-old from Madrid, shows his profile on that platform on his phone.
He has an A+
grade
, the highest, thanks to his punctuality.
“When you accept a shipment, time starts to race against the clock,” he says.
"If you're late you lose points."
Florin Bosnea's hands showing the Amazon Relay application on his mobile.
DAVID EXPOSITO
Truckers using charging apps are like sailors looking for the best wind to take them to their destination.
Sometimes, on the way back to their city of origin, they make stops along the way.
It is what they know as
triangulation
.
Thursdays are dry days, says Rey.
Speculators know that many truckers want to return home to spend the weekend with family.
For this reason, they wait for Friday to hang the offers at rock-bottom prices.
Rey says that he prefers to return to his house in A Coruña empty: "I am a rare bird because I have paid for the truck and I can afford it."
He rejects them because he does not tolerate abuse and believes that they should organize to prevent it.
“The problem is that it is impossible to agree with thousands and thousands of freelancers.
What does not work for me, does work for the next door”.
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