Key facts:
- Drivers from Belarus say they have not been paid for July, August or September. Their claims have been estimated at approximately €150,000.
- The protest involves around 25 truck combinations belonging to MBC Trans.
- According to the carrier, the drivers were not employed directly by MBC Trans but by Warsaw-based temporary staffing agency Super Job.
- A lawyer representing MBC Trans says the company has proof that it paid the invoices issued by the agency.
- Some vehicles reportedly had their telematics systems switched off, preventing the carrier from tracking the location of certain trucks and their loads.
- The Dutch trade union FNV and the Road Transport Due Diligence Foundation (RTDD) are also involved.
- No independent ruling has established why the drivers were not paid or which party is legally responsible.
Drivers carrying out international transport work for MBC Trans say they went without pay for three months: July, August and September. Their claims have been estimated at approximately €150,000.
According to Zero.pl, the protest began at a parking area in Germany, where around 25 truck combinations were stopped. German police intervened, and the carrier managed to recover some of the vehicles.
Some of the drivers later moved to Venlo in the Netherlands, where the FNV trade union took an interest in the case.
The sister of one of the protesting drivers told Trans.INFO that around 25 Belarusian drivers were staying at the guarded parking area at Truckstop Venlo and demanding payment of their outstanding wages. The Road Transport Due Diligence Foundation is reportedly involved alongside FNV.
She also described the difficult circumstances facing some of the drivers and their families. According to her account, the families had been without income from the drivers’ work for several months. These claims were provided by one side in the dispute and had not been independently verified by the editorial team at the time of publication.
The dispute quickly spread to TikTok
The case soon appeared on social media. Videos posted on TikTok showed drivers accusing MBC Trans of failing to pay their wages.
However, there is currently no independent basis for assigning responsibility for the missing payments to the carrier.
That distinction also matters to transport companies. A dispute whose underlying facts have not yet been independently established can spread across social media within hours and begin to affect a company’s reputation.
Who employed the drivers?
Reports by Zero.pl and MBC Trans’s account of the matter suggest that the drivers were not direct employees of the transport company. They were reportedly employed by Warsaw-based temporary staffing agency Super Job and assigned to work for the carrier.
Damian Nartowski, a lawyer at WN Legal Wątrobiński Nartowski who is advising MBC Trans, told Zero.pl that the company has bank transfer confirmations corresponding to the invoices issued by the agency.
Trans.INFO asked both MBC Trans and Super Job for comment. Neither organisation had responded by the time of publication.
The dispute disrupted the fleet’s operations
Reputational risk is only one aspect of the problem. The dispute also began to disrupt the carrier’s day-to-day transport operations.
HaloŁuków.pl reported that some drivers had switched off the telematics systems in their vehicles. As a result, the carrier allegedly lost the ability to monitor the location of some trucks and their loads.
The wage dispute therefore affected the company’s ability to conduct its transport operations.
Every immobilised truck combination creates a risk of delays, missed jobs and additional operating costs. With a fleet of more than 100 trucks, the loss of several dozen combinations could significantly reduce the company’s operational capacity.
What temporary-work rules say
Information from Poland’s State Labour Inspectorate on temporary employment states that the staffing agency is the formal employer of a temporary worker and is legally responsible for paying wages. The user employer has a separate set of duties, including work organisation, working-time records and health and safety.
This is the general statutory rule, but it does not by itself determine the final financial or legal responsibility in this particular case.
The regulations identify the formal employer, but they do not explain how the contractual settlements between the carrier and the intermediary were handled or why the money did not reach the drivers.
The situation nevertheless highlights an important risk-management issue: a transport company may remain operationally dependent on an intermediary functioning properly, even when the company itself has settled its invoices in line with the contract.
Driver outsourcing also creates operational risk
The main lesson is not that carriers should abandon driver outsourcing or stop using temporary staffing agencies. Rather, the case shows that this model places part of the risk outside the carrier’s direct control. When a staffing agency and drivers become embroiled in a pay dispute, the consequences can quickly extend to the fleet, ongoing jobs and customer relationships.
For transport companies, the cost of the service and access to drivers are only part of the decision. The intermediary’s reliability, a clear allocation of responsibilities, properly documented settlements and procedures for handling a sudden dispute are equally important.
In the MBC Trans case, payment confirmations relating to invoices issued by the agency are among the key documents cited by the carrier in support of its account of events. This illustrates that when a company works with an external labour provider, settlement records can have accounting, operational and reputational significance.
The case also demonstrates a second risk: an operational conflict can spread rapidly on social media before the responsibility of each party has been independently established.
