Swift fires more drivers in union dispute - The Daily Breeze


Hmmm... I thought Dave Berry was freelancing these days

I almost skipped this thread as a matter of due course as it is about coolie carrier truck driving. More specifically Swift Transportation.

What a mistake that would have been! An excellent article indeed! Everything that I and a few others have been saying for years. All wrapped up in one well written article. Folks, this is why truck driving is in the terrible shape that it is today for the driver.

Pause.............3, 2, 1............until GMAN and some other piece-rate apologists come running in. (or not?)

To each their own.
You keep being indie, I'll continue to get back on with the big boys.

As far as ports and rail-container yards go, dealt with that for 7 months and never want to venture to the San Gabriel Valley again.

From the article Ms 4U posted . .

"In some cases, Swift has had to add to drivers' paychecks to ensure they are paid at least $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage, according to Ricardo Hidalgo, a Teamsters organizer."

How many times have I posted similar remarks only to have others respond I was nuts? The difference here is that Swift has the union breathing down it's neck and therefor, they're paying it. In the meantime, there are hundreds of thousands of Drivers out there who have no idea that this law exists (or worse, refuse to believe it when they are told that it exists!) and thousands of employers who are in no rush to tell them.

So, here I go again . . If you're getting plenty of miles or paid by the hour, this probably won't apply to you because you're probably covering the minimum wage requirement already. If, on the other hand, you find yourself . .

Sitting a lot
Stuck in traffic a lot
Hooked to a loading dock a lot
Creating, responding or reading a post on CAD
Snowbound, fogbound or upside down in a tornado
At home on your couch awaiting dispatch (no beer in hand)
Stuck at a terminal waiting for repairs or a truck or a trainer, etc.
Or any combination . .

and your gross pay is less than $508/week, the Federal Minimum wage for a 70 hour week, your employer owes you the difference. The only requirement is that you were working or you were available to work . . in a state of readiness, as the law says.

I don't believe you need to log your availability on line 4 but even if you do, you can still log 10 hours a day and never run out of hours. This does not average so every week is unique. If you make $200 one week and $1000 the next, you did not average $600/week for 2 weeks. In the eyes of the law, your employer owes you the Federal minimum for the first week and you don't owe it back for the second.

As for the original topic, I hope these guys understand that Jerry could shut down that whole operation overnight and absorb or dispose of the equipment just as fast. I'm sure he doesn't want to do that for any number of reasons but my sense is that if he thought the union was gaining ground, he would. I say, rescind the Truck Driver's exemption to the overtime provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Until then, Jerry is only playing by the rules. It's the rules that need to be changed.

That would be 80 hrs or 70 hrs on a 8 day/7 day week.

Thats the key right there!!!

I never knew it until I got into the bulk milk hauling industry that they pay by the load and seems that a lot of the fuel haulers here in Phoenix do too. Of course I'm talking about local work, OTR is obviously paid by mile or some other way. So basically what I'm saying is that it seems that paying by the load now a days whether you haul milk/fuel or just work for good ole' Swift seems to be the way companies are paying, which really sucks because I know I've worked a 20 hr. day for a measly $210, a whopping 3 loads at $70 a load. The companies that actually do pay by the hour......ha good luck getting into those companies.

Edit....

Just a little bump so the PRA's can get a better look at the thread . .

Trucker's math.