Profile For Woody

Insurance was a extremely important in my choice. I work for YRC and have medical dental and vision. All I pay is my $55 union dues.

I am on my way out the door, wish I had more time to respond since there are several different topics in this thread.

First to the original topic about being paid for on duty time versus millage. I work for a union company and this is how it already is for us. About the only time I do not get paid for is my pretrip, paperwork, and breaks. Brett is right going to hourly would probably reduce productivity so I get paid CPM. But if I have to wait at the terminal for a load, wait for a truck repair, set on an impassable highway, or spend too much time in a hotel waiting to be dispatched I get paid for my time. At full scale it is around $21 per hour. I log ALL my on duty hours because I am getting paid. That being said since we are on paper logs of course there are drivers who do not log the way I do.

As far as the companies being able to pay more than they do I will say I both agree and disagree with what Brett is saying. Since we normally try to talk about things we have direct experience from I will. The OTR company I started with was known for being able to put extra money on your loads and I had it happen quite often. How often? If you are a good driver that runs and they want to keep you from leaving they will put extra money on every load. Does that mean they are swimming in cash? Not by a long shot. Trucking is a touch competitive field with low margins. But if they have extra money to throw on loads with little to no negotiations then there is extra money there to pay the driver.

There is a horrible trend going on in the business world that is increasing an already out of hand income inequality. Employees are taking pay cuts while the CEO's pay is going up even higher than it ever was. It happened to my wife, who is a nurse. And now it has happened in trucking. During the down turn of 08 the teamsters negotiated a pay cut, or what the company likes to label a "give back". In fact there were a couple of them that ended up totaling 15%. While still working under this 15% pay cut 3 of the top CEO's in one of the companies have received pay INCREASES this year worth a combined 14 MILLION.

Brett I totally get where you are coming from and for the most part agree. But the trends that are going on in our country these days are sickening. The hospital my wife used to work for is now in the process of trying to go union because of everything that has happened in the last few years. This was once the best hospital to work for and one that my wife said she would never leave. That was until greed took over and everything changed. On a side note a nurse in that hospital was recently fired for her efforts to move the union forward. So much for her "right to work".

I do not think all the trucking companies are swimming in money. Not even close. But I do think a great number of them can be paying more than they do. In fact I hear adds all the time about the pay going up.

Guess I had more time than I thought. But one last note to go along with what has happened in trucking at least with my limited knowledge and experience. I worked in the flooring industry for some 15+ years, managing a store the last 5. In all those years I only increased my freight factor one time, and that was around 2010 I believe maybe even a little later. So while everything in our country was going up in cost, my price to get it delivered to my store had seen little to no increase. We have talked before about all the things that we able to make this happen but an essential pay cut for the drivers must be included in those figures.

Woody

'cause somebody didn't do a tug test.

You have no way of knowing if they did a tug test. I won't go through the entire story but it happened to me. I was still with a trainer and had hooked to a trailer. I tugged it three to four times, had driven a mile or two taking about six turns. Then the trailer dropped.

Now I ALWAYS get under and look.

Woody

Yes it gets easier. One day you will just realize that your no longer sweating the things you used to like shifting gears.

And yes I love that part of the country. I work out of Indianapolis and take runs down to Charlotte or other terminals in that neck of the woods. They are my favorite trips, especially if I get to run that area during the day LOL.

Woody

I work for YRC and go into Nashville once in a while to one of our Terminals. It is a Union linehaul company with great benefits. You might check them out. I think Old Dominion has a terminal there as well which is another one I would look into.

Woody

Keep in mind - the TRUCKING COMPANY'S like per diem, because they are not responsible for "matching tax payments" for SSI/FICA. So it costs them less "out of pocket" to give you a portion of your pay this way.

Rick

That is not the only reason the companies like per diem. Some companies, probably most, keep 1 to 3 cpm for doing the per diem. In my humble opinion it is a racket that sucks people in because the checks are higher. I in fact tried to NOT be paid per diem at one company and it was next to impossible to get them to take me off of a program that I said from the start I did not want to use.

To me its a numbers game. I do not remember the exact numbers from my previous employer but here is the basic run down. Lets say I was being paid 30 cpm. On the per diem schedule they would deduct 14cpm to be figured as non taxed (at that time) income. Of that 14 cents I actually was paid 12. So they kept 2 cpm for doing the program. When I questioned them on it I was told it was for fees they had to pay to the government.

There is a reason some companies push and sell their drivers so hard on per diem pay and it is NOT because it benefits the driver.

Woody

Yes the higher percentage means drop and hook more often. But sometimes this can bite you in the keister. Just because a load is to be dropped does not always mean there is a trailer there to pick up. Meaning you may be sent on a wild goose chase looking for another trailer. My worst case was spending an entire weekend looking for a trailer then when I finally got one and made it to the shipper the load was already gone. Yes I was paid for the miles but I really didn't make any money. I was amazed how many times the company really didn't know where their trailers were.

Brett mentioned in his book about making notes on where you have found empties in the past, it is a good habit to get into.

Woody

In bad weather I would call and let them know I am shut down just a few miles away and ask if I could deliver early in order to open a slot later in the day for drivers that are delayed by the road conditions. Sometimes people like to help other people but they ALWAYS like to help themselves. Pointing out that getting you out early might help them later in the day is often a good approach.

Woody

Drop and hook means you drop one trailer and pick up another one. This way you don't have to set waiting to get loaded or unloaded and gets you moving quicker.

I agree with Red, if I were still OTR I too would want the option. Maybe not so much to actually turn down a load but it gives you negotiating power. When I worked for Knight if they had a load they really wanted to get covered it was pretty easy to get some extra cash thrown on top of the standard pay. With forced dispatch this would not have been an option. While I never turned down a load I did earn some extra cash from time to time.

Woody