like many exengers i often think about returning to work as a courier, most of all when i have to ride into town during the day and start remembering old routes and jobs and blasting through traffic with an enormous bag just seems like the most natural thing in the world. unfortunately it's possibly out of necessity, i need to pay rent, i'm currently working 1 day a week every week, plus a couple here and there with art fitting and the odd bit of lucrative sound hire/engineering. if i'm gonna keep a roof over my head and food in the cupboard i need more.

what really fucking bothers me about going back is how utterly fucked the industry is, the complete disregard for employment law (piece workers! HA!), the fact that your earnings are governed by reps who get paid more the less you guys earn ("oh look they've dropped our minimums again, oh well, we kept the citigroup account"), the illegal uniform you have to pay for, the xda that you have to pay for but aren't allowed to find a better provider... the list is pretty infinite, coupled with the political events of the last few years and the politicisation i've received since quitting (i'm sitting here wearing all black, eyeing a high powered slingshot) it makes me soooooo fucking angry to see... and not just at the companies, reps and accounts- at all you fucks, myself included for sitting by and doing sweet fuck all while we're being fucked. does no one else find the fact that the LBMA* said it would have nothing to do with unions, then dissolved itself and is now replaced by a charity fucking heartbreaking?

*the LBMA's main lobbying point in seemed to me to be road safety, well you seem to have a relatively safe city as far as messeger's go: 1 death at work since i started in 2003; shame about the 3 suicides in the same space of time...

i don't really know why i'm posting this, i'm sort of thinking about writing an article for the IWW zine about this forsaken industry that seems to have lost it's ethics somewhere between the victorians and the tudors (i would intend it to be informative rather than a call to arms). i'm also thinking about going back on the road but i've earned so much better money while being treated with actual respect since leaving, there just isn't enough of the work about though that could change.any.day.... now.

will i just forget all this shit if i'm taking £350 a week? fuck that really isn't much these days, the least they could do is guarantee it...

maybe i'll get the hook up i've spent the last 6 months waiting for and all this won't matter to me and i'll just wonder to myself why it doesn't matter to you either...

That is poetry, Sleepy.

I haven't been on the road since October, but I was by no means slow and I rarely made more than £320 a week, working 5 days. Anyway, I'm sure you're more aware of the current realities than I am.

I wish you all the best with whatever you decide Sleeps. I myself am looking at a slow-burning career change and may well need some rent money during the crossover dip. Mine's a pint, roger rog etc.

Edit: and I do really fucking miss it sometimes. There's something truly untouchable about those Friday afternoons, mid-summer, bangin' down Regent Street at 4.30pm, 8 in your bag, music blaring, alleycat tonight.

I have similar thoughts, I can watch the vids on youtube, sometimes I have that courier feeling when Im chopping through stuck traffic and I also try and remember the bad as well...no money sometimes, can I pay the rent this week? broken bones, deadly winter flu. I would love to do it again and I always think about it.

Its also very much like my old chemical addictions, speed, pills, coke, acid occaisionally, ketamine when it was available, poppers and all the pharmaceuticals,weed, skunk and hash. I dont do it anymore, slowly gave up when I became courier, got into cycling,
Iv since changed my career, I even gave up smoking. One year this feb, not sure If I can knock the alcohol, I still need a vice.
I still think about it, crave a spliff sometimes, maybe one day I will do a couple of pills in the garden whilst listening to some old school drum and bass. Just for old times sake.

but the thing is, my wanting to be a courier again is the same as wanting to get back on the good stuff.

Two old mates, Ill never forget, best left alone and left for dead.

Well, maybe selfish of me to say this but I'm glad someone's opened up. I fucking miss it like fuck. I thought I'd hung up my shoes but I still dream the dream...coz that's all it ever was really.Then reality bends me over and fucks me deep and hard, and I realise that it's not a decision I can take alone anymore....doesn't make any sense and neither do I. Bah!

A lot of people were averse to joining a union because they were worried that by signing up they would have to give up their anonymity and make the HMRC aware of their whereabouts and have to pay big lump-sums in back taxes. The truth is now that most riders would be probably be better off declaring, since the earnings are so piss-poor that they'd not have to pay anything anyway, and in some cases, would possibly qualify for income support.

Any of you remember this...

http://libcom.org/library/the-couriers-are-revolting-the-despatch-industry-workers-union-1989-1992


and a little more recent thanks to 24Tee...

http://24tee.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/afterword/

which begins with this...

http://24tee.wordpress.com/self-employed-3/


If you do, great. If you don't, read on, and if you know someone who doesn't either, then spread the word?

Yeah I was still drunk when I posted that.I re-read it when I'd sobered up and the hangover kicked in and thought it was cheesy.I'll post more drunken schmaltz again at some point I reckon.

Guess there's no point really then: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12312417

^^ there are things that can be done to pressure despatch firms ^^

Workers' Solidarity on the subject.

"Faced with united employee opposition the management gave way completely, perhaps realising that resisting such a modest pay-rise was effectively serving to unionise the workforce."

"- - - Nevertheless, the Cyclone couriers' success was a heartening one; people with absolutely no experience in industrial confrontation won for themselves a less unreasonable wage. They demonstrated the potential of direct action by a workforce to achieve improvements in their working conditions."