As U.K. Beckons Truck Drivers, Many in Poland Say ?No Thanks? By David Segal, 11/28/21, New York Times
The shortfall of drivers has led some in the trucking industry to predict that the Christmas season will require some unhappy choices.
?If this problem isn?t rectified soon, people in the supply chain will be forced to make a decision: Do we want to ship essentials like food, or luxury items for the holidays?? said Rob Holliman, who oversees 140 trucks as the director of two British trucking companies. ?We can have either milk in supermarkets or Xmas presents in stores. There aren?t enough truck drivers to have both.?
The reluctance of Polish truckers to move to Britain is also a story about how life in Poland has improved in the past decade. 15 years ago, when Witold Szulc moved to a town near Manchester, his paycheck as a truck driver & his quality of life rose substantially, he said. Since 2010, Poland?s economic growth has been strong enough for FTSE Russell, which licenses stock market indexes, to reclassify the country as a developed market, up from an emerging market.
As Poland?s fortunes rose, Szulc soured on England. The parking lots & facilities for truckers, he said, are abysmal compared with those in most of Europe. The showers are old & poorly maintained, & the toilets are filthy & stinking, a sentiment echoed by many truckers, foreign & otherwise. More important, he & his wife came to dread the idea of raising their 4 kids in Britain.
?We don?t like the lifestyle of British kids,? Szulc said. ?They?re loud, they behave badly, they don?t seem to respect anybody. And a lot of them don?t like immigrants, like their parents. We imagined our children growing up like that, & we said, ?No.??
In 2019, he returned to Poland, & now he & a friend own & run an organic food store in Lodz.
Skopinski, the driver who chats with friends on WhatsApp, also has plans to move back to Poland early next year. His mother is older, & he?d like to live nearby. Plus, he has made enough money to leave.
?At this point,? he said, ?the only thing I like about England is the finances.?