[One]

I have been away from this forum for several years and really not been following what has been going on in trucking much at all, but I see the same crap still going on and drivers just talking like it is the status quo, to just accept it.

I still see:
- companies paying 36cpm while most are now talking about 40 for starting pay (slight improvement)
- shorting drivers on miles by using HHG to figure mileage while they themselves figure their rate by PC miler
- people driving on percentage without demanding to see the rate sheet to know what they are getting a percentage of
- still working 2 weeks for 8-10 days worth of work
- driving for free to get the truck to service or other reasons
- not pushing for their detention pay they are legally entitled to
- asked to pay deposits or accept some pay to go into 'escrow' for the event of damage to goods or equipment

I am sure i will remember more and more and will add to this list what others comment. Drivers just plain need to put their foot down and insist on stuff. Just do not go to work for ****ty outfits and they will have to change their tune. Any driver with 2 years experience and a relatively clean record is worth gold.
It has been my policy to require $1000 net pay for 5 days and i reset at the house for many years. IDC what the company does with that time, If I am an employee and asked to work 70 hours, I will be paid for 70 hours. I have been able to consistently do 2500-3500 miles/wk in a 65mph truck dropping and hooking with an average 2h/day daily waiting on a trailer. I know it can be done to properly dispatch drivers where they can keep moving, but i know it requires more effort and sometimes to turn down a load that wastes time.
If more drivers simply grew a pair and practiced the work 'NO' we would be in a whole lot better position as drivers. Too many drivers accept too much bull and too little pay. Some of these companies get away with breaking the law outright because drivers are not reporting them.

[link]

I take my hat off to you, well said, Really at the end of the day you just get annoyed with yourself for trying to help people, or telling people how you think it could be done better for there own benefit and they just keep on doing the same thing over and over, and you think that these people don't have a brain, so you just mind your own business and let them earn there peanuts for big hours.
(sheep following the herd) comes to mind, gone beyond help and there are a hell of a lot of them, I think its the same in a lot of different jobs, I have met people who could not tie there shoe laces and yet there they are driving trucks all over the country, the mind boggles.

[One]

Out of curiosity I called a number on an ad. As most ads it did not name the carrier. Turns out it is one of those independent recruiters. That lady actually told me that I was unrealistic in my requirements, 700-900/wk gross would be more in line with a van job. And that is out 2-3 weeks. I live on a major freight lane (Atlanta area). How it is hard to get a driver home for a reset in Atlanta is beyond me. But the pay is just nuts... I will not drive for 500 net after tax and insurance. I make more than that in 3 days currently and do not risk my life on the road, forced to overnight in front of shippers gates in bad areas because an e-log makes it necessary.

[Mr. Ford95]

It is sad, there are some good jobs out there that pay very well for being out on the road. They are just hard to come by it seems. The industry claims driver shortage..........wonder why........maybe the whole 2 weeks out for 1.5 days at home doesn't work anymore! Neither does the pay. OK this driver has a so so record, start their pay lower then, but a driver with a good record still making peanuts? Your right, it's bull! Oh the profit margin is thin, the companies are doing it to themselves though by undercutting rates just to get loads. Still the same as it was 10 years ago!

[repete]

A while back I started getting unhappy with my company. So I started looking, ever hear of the old saying the grass is greener..... WELL THAT'S BS! I couldn't believe how low the "top pay" is. I talked to guys that promised this and that and they thought I'd jump at the chance to work for them for less than I make now? I had one guy telling me how much I'd make working for him and I had to pin him down before he'd admit that was contract basis and had NO bennies or taxes taken out.
I fought with my company for a long time trying to get a raise, I still want more (and MORE) but after looking around I realize I got it better than a lot of drivers.
Part of me can't believe what some guys will work for, but then again have you seen how some of these guy's drive? I had one pass me and came over all the way into my lane while he was still next to me! I was all the way on the shoulder and slowed down to move back into the right lane.
Just look around at any truck stop and you'll see the quality of the drivers out here, tossing trash and pee bombs all over. Half of them look like some kind've homeless refugee! can't park worth a damn or won't park! How many times have seen the fuel islands full of trucks then notice that none of them are being fueled?
Ya just had to get me started! Didn't ya?

[Mr. Ford95]

No kidding repete, I've looked........and stopped looking. My looking now is for an office job! I'm scheduled to make between 36/38K, BUT, I'm home every night, normally an 8 hour day max with weekends off and most holidays off. Sometimes I work more than 8 hours, but I get OT pay as an hourly guy. For me to go OTR, it would have to be for at least 48/50K a year. And nobody locally pays what I'm making consistently. They pay by how many loads you run, no dice! But FedEx pays very well, just impossible to get hired on. The drivers are home every night but they are working 12/14 hour days. Due the math, making the same as what I currently am if I run my OT pay over 40 hours!

[repete]

Office job, been there and done that! Was nice for a while but I can only tolerate idiots for so long. I tried really hard for a long time! I really did try I knew it was time to leave when I hung up on one a__hole and when he called back and asked "DID YOU JUST HANG UP ON ME"? My answer was something like, WHAT DIDN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THE FIRST TIME ! Click. I gotta admit I really enjoyed that and I'm sure they would've fired me but it was in the middle of 'crash season' and they didn't have anyone to replace me.
Around here most of the Fed ex jobs that are listed are sub contract at least once sometime 2x and everybody takes a little piece of the pie.
Overtime? Man o man I'd love to get OT, I do 60 hrs aweek, and this week I have to somehow cram in a 6th trip and keep it under 70hrs! luckily I park next door to where I unload so I don't have to worry about hour #72 now I just have to trime hour #71!
While were talking OT, 20hrs a week x 50 weeks that's 1000 hrs (straight time) X 9 years = 9000 HOURS! HOLY SMOKES! At just $20 that's $180,000.00
I was happier not knowing that!

[One]

IDK what is is about this industry. It seems ever since deregulation is has gotten less efficient. No other industries asks its workers to work up to 70 hours and still not let them go home afterwards all while only paying them for 50...We all know it is possible to make good margins. Proper planning, taking ltl's and finding yourself in well paying lanes helps. Who came up with the idea that shipping oranges from florida to Cali and cali to Florida was a good idea? Of course someone has to take a pay cut to do it and I think the ATA along with the big industries are to blame.

[Mr. Ford95]

Originally Posted by One

Who came up with the idea that shipping oranges from florida to Cali and cali to Florida was a good idea? Of course someone has to take a pay cut to do it and I think the ATA along with the big industries are to blame.

It's the same with the flower industry and shipping! Local places to me ship to the South while Southern flower places were shipping up North..........screwy as heck! It was all about how the contracts were awarded. The Southern places filled our local stores but the place just 20 minutes away had to go 500-1000 miles away to deliver. It has somewhat changed but only because the 2 largest on the East Coast are family. They are working closer, to a point, with each other now on using common sense delivery.

Repete, insurance places are never good for people like you and me! I'd be the same way! "Oh you saw the deer and never slowed up for it? Ah, because you thought it would stop! Well, tough we aren't covering this for you, IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT!" Of course I have good reason to be looking at office work as a just in case deal.

One, I know of a few companies that do ask their workers, well, demand and force them to work weekends in manufacturing. Granted they do get OT for it, they are pulling 60 hour weeks or more and the only thing they can do to stop it is to quit. If they say no dice, they are fired.........they are treated as if they are indentured servers......and yet the company can't understand why they can't keep workers. You pay them $8-10 an hour to be on their feet in a warehouse all day then at hour 7 inform them they have to stay another 3 hours or more and right at the end of their shift on Friday it's potluck on being forced to work weekends. So it's not just trucking that sees BS.

[One]

I know you are right. the fewest states even have laws mandating breaks for their workers. I currently work 7.5hrs to get to my lunch break and sometime have to put my foot down to be able to go. "No. we can't do that right quick because it's lunch time, bye." The only way i get a break before then is if i hustle wide open to get caught up. To do that i only have to move 50 trailers.
Something is really wrong in this country. Most seem to agree on that, but the solutions are like night and day. I know that pure socialism nor pure capitalism are the answer to a balanced economy, but something in between. You just have to do what works. Sadly politics is so corrupt that our dear representatives do what they think they have to to get re-elected while throwing their own people under the bus. A few years ago in Alabama they passed that anti-immigration law for example. earned the politicians great points with the racists, but caused crops to rot in the fields because nobody was there to pick them.

Talk about manufacturing. Recently on this board we discussed common driver injuries like bad shoulders, wrists, knees, backs and someone pointed to a website talking about preventing repetitive motion injuries. Turned out it was an Osha site and it recommended ergonomics to help prevent such injuries. lifting aids and better shaped tools helps in a factory, but there is really nothing for us drivers. It's all BS. If you cannot point to an incident where an injury occurred, Workers Comp treats you like a dead beat and rubber stamps a few pills, PT and a few weeks of light duty.
The bottom line is that across the board we have to fight for less working hours. Knowing economics that means that wages rise as a result. The problem for employers is cost of keeping more labor for the same man hours due largely to health insurance. Corruption yet again ended up screwing us over.
When it comes to drivers the real issue imo in limiting working hours is e-logs. In theory they reduce the total hours worked by making it impossible for companies to coax drivers to cheat the logs. But i am not so convinced that reality reflects that net result. Before e-logs we could just say that we do not have the hours and that's it... now companies know how many hours you have. Drivers had more flexibility to influence their schedule and therefore the runs they were getting. All I wanted to do as an OTR driver was to run 5 days and get home and really hardly had log issues to make that happen. Now with e-logs the working conditions have actually gotten worse and drivers have lost flexibility to work their own logs. Now the ATA is lobbying heavily to extent the 70 hour rule to 75!!! This will not mean more income for drivers in the long term and as economic law dictates= when the labor supply is increased, wages fall.

I know I am all over the place most of the time (ADD), but let me try to come full circle:
In order to make more money in less time we must increase efficiency in the industry. Bad dispatching because each dispatcher has 50 drivers to tend to and the unwillingness of companies to get together and agree to charge detention time at a high rate from when the driver gets there to when he leaves a customer is the main cause imo.
The only way this will change is if it HAS TO and that is up to the drivers. New drivers never know what is right or what is normal, so we experienced drivers have to educate them. I personally discourage everyone from going into this industry. Maybe not if the person has a family business tied to freight/manufacturing/farming/transport. 90% of the time a new driver is better off getting any other job than being the next recruit and we must drive that home. There are a lot of veteran drivers sitting around (like myself) while a lot of rookies are making our roads dangerous.