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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Sarah Butler

Low pay, fuel fines, cramped cabs: drivers at haulier used by major retailers speak out

A young male driver in the cab of a large lorry, with a hi-vis jacket draped around his seat, his face averted to maintain anomymity
A Girteka driver at the Belgium-Netherlands border. Drivers say they spent weeks at a time sleeping in cramped cabs. Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Observer

Drivers for one of Europe’s biggest delivery firms, which works for Amazon, Ikea and DHL, claim they are being left with no option but to sleep in their trucks for months and are earning well below the minimum wage in most of the countries they visit, according to an Observer investigation.

In a series of interviews conducted in Belgium in March, drivers at the Lithuanian haulier Girteka, which says it employs 19,000 people across Europe, said they had spent weeks at a time sleeping in cramped cabs, often sharing a bunk with a co-driver.

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