A trucking boss last night hit back at accusations that his business has taken on a non-Bermudian at the expense of locals.The Royal Gazette has been contacted by a truck driver who claimed that Julian Lodge, of Lodge Trucking, gave a mainly truck driving job to an overseas worker at a time when many Bermudian truckers say they are desperate to secure steady work.Mr Lodge advertised a position of mechanic and driver on April 16. The position was filled the following week, on a renewed work permit, by a worker from Indonesia whom Mr Lodge has employed for about three years.Mr Lodge responded: “No Bermudian ever contacted me about the job when it was advertised. If there was any Bermudian who wanted that job, they should have contacted me. I have never had anyone call to even see what the job is about.”He said the man in question works a truck at the periphery of LF Wade International Airport, carrying cement and ash blocks brought in from the Tynes Bay incinerator facility to the airport dump. Mr Lodge’s employee does not use a Bermuda driver’s licence, he said, because the truck does not go on the roads.“I advertised for a mechanic and driver, not a driver,” Mr Lodge said. “This is a truck that takes a lot of licks.”He added that he did receive some casual inquiries for work around the time he renewed his employee’s work permit.“I did get a couple of guys asking me for work. I asked them, are you a mechanic? They weren’t. The position was advertised, and they did not apply for it. My business is small, and it suits me to have a mechanic who can help me with other things. I don’t get a driver just to drive.”As well as providing his employee with accommodation, Mr Lodge said he pays a wage based on what the employee quotes, rather than a market rate.“The wage is based on what he asks for and we agree upon,” he said, adding: “There’s no money in trucking right now. Things are very soft, there’s no work. As it is, I have to scrape to pay.”However, the rival trucker, who asked that his name not be used for this article, insisted that the position being filled was that of a driver.He likened advertising for a “mechanic/driver” to asking for “an underwriter/receptionist” and said a Bermudian mechanic could expect “$45 an hour, minimum” considerably more than a driver earns.“Do you think you are going to find a Bermudian mechanic who is, first, unemployed, keeping in mind Bermudians make up a small percentage of the needed mechanics, and, second, willing to drive at a driver’s salary?” he said.Speaking of Mr Lodge’s overseas worker, he said: “I know first hand that this guy spends 40 plus hours a week as a driver. I have exactly the same size business, and our mechanical needs don’t come any where close to justifying a mechanic. Take a look at his fleet of three trucks, and ask yourself how much mechanical work gets done on them.He continued: “My concern is for the Bermudian drivers’ jobs. If this is now going to be accepted practice, I ask this question, are we all going to have to go to a third world country to find a truck driver and apply to immigration for a mechanic/driver, and pay them well below the going mechanics rate, and will we all get permission? Where will all the 600 drivers then work?“My problem is we get four or five truck drivers a month looking for jobs, and yet we are giving away work permits, then our policy is failing Bermudians. Truck driving is one of the larger employment demographics in the Country, particularly for Bermudian males with no post-secondary education.”In response, Mr Lodge said that if Bermudians needed work, they should have called him to apply for it when it was advertised in The Royal Gazette.He added that one of his trucks at the airport site had been vandalised over the weekend.“Someone has broken the windscreen,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s because people have a problem with who I’ve hired, but I’m going to ask the police to look into it.”