This story from the BBC reports that a hand car wash at a Tesco store in Congleton, Cheshire was found to be employing “undocumented” Romanians and paying them only about half the minimum wage (£3.63 an hour).
It’s funny, because I’ve recently started using hand car washes and they’re bloody brilliant. I can get a high-quality wash and shine, plus a vacuuming of the interior, for the same price I was paying for a top Tiger Wash in the drive-thru at my local garage (which never cleaned the alloys properly, frequently didn’t blow off all the loose water, and was often not working anyway because some prat had driven into the machinery before it had risen out of the way). But what struck me was the turnover they must be pulling in.
Last time I was there, in the space of about 30 minutes they cleaned and vacuumed six cars, and more were queuing as I drove off. A simple wash and dry costs £5 and a vac on top takes it to £10. So I saw them turnover at least £150-£200 in an hour. At a rough estimate, they might be pulling in somewhere in the region of £1,000 a day, and perhaps £7,000 a week – maybe even more than that. They operate out of disused petrol stations, so rental costs must be quite low. Obviously they have to buy in materials, but I’ve looked some of them up and the most expensive item is around £1.25 per litre (they probably pay much less), and each litre would be enough to clean dozens of cars. There’s usually 6-8 blokes all working like mad, but I reckon that each could be grossing the equivalent of nearly £1,000 a week.
That would equate to over £20 an hour.
Having said that, it must be absolutely back-breaking work, and the materials are powerful surfactants, so with little in the way of safety equipment (maybe a pair of latex gloves) the long-term effects on the health of those guys must be questionable.
The Tesco operation is a franchise operated by Waves Car Wash, and they apparently have 180 Tesco sites. The franchisee at Congleton is the culprit – not Waves. However, the same BBC story notes that a Northwich car wash (not operated by Waves) was found on the same day to be employing three asylum seekers.
As I say, the one I go to does a bloody good job.