Unfairness Of Pay By The Hour And The Fair Labor Act

The big concern everyone always has with mileage pay of course is the fact that certain job duties are not specifically paid for like fueling the truck and filling out paperwork. For me personally I never minded mileage pay for a couple of reasons:

1) Companies and their drivers both get paid by the amount of work that's getting done. Companies normally get paid a certain amount per mile to haul freight and the driver is paid his/her rate for doing the job. That means the company and the driver have the same interest - they both want to turn as many miles as possible.

Now if you changed it to hourly pay the driver may no longer be motivated to haul as much freight as possible. It would pay more if he could spend more time doing less work which means sitting at customers, sitting at the fuel island, and possible just sitting at a truck stop doing nothing would pay you more for doing less. The company could pay much higher rates for hauling the freight than it does for other job duties but then you run into all kinds of other problems like drivers parking on the side of the road to take a nap for two hours while claiming they were sitting in a traffic backup or parking at a customer and taking a two hour nap while claiming they were still waiting to get loaded.

So I think you would have to put together a very robust system to begin with but even then it's going to lead to a lot of conflict between drivers and companies. They will find themselves at odds with each other instead of in agreement over what their goals should be.

2) I was one to work harder than most so obviously paying everyone the same means the harder working, more competent drivers are going to be making the same as the lazier, less competent drivers. Again, you would need a very robust pay system to make sure there weren't abuses to the system and to make sure you didn't create a system that actually disincentivized workers when it comes to getting work done.

Now you mentioned that you hope "the industry" would fix this but I can assure you the industry would have done something about it 50 years ago if they wanted to. This is the way the industry wants it. The only way you're going to get significant changes done to the way drivers are paid is through legislation or unions because it's legislation that allowed the current system to flourish in the first place. So if you're calling for changes, start screaming toward Congress because that's how it's going to get done. But remember, the only thing many Americans hate more than having unions helping them get better pay and work conditions is having the Government do it. So even though you'd be championing the cause of the drivers, because you'll have to get the Government involved you're going to face a big backlash from a lot of drivers for approaching Congress about it.

Now what would happen if they changed it to hourly pay? In the end I believe drivers would make the same as they're making today. The current infrastructure of the industry, including truck prices, fuel costs, liability insurance rates, and driver wages have created a system where freight tends to be priced within certain ranges that are very well established. So I don't see a change in the way drivers are being paid as an excuse to suddenly charge much higher freight rates. Shippers just aren't going to go for that. There's so much competition that shippers will continue to look for prices in the range they're used to because that's the range their business model has revolved around.

So I think the mileage pay would basically be converted to the equivalent hourly wages and in the end you'll make the same yearly salary as you did before.

What I always did was look at the body of work to decide if trucking was worth it or not. How much work did I do, how many risks did I take, and how many sacrifices did I make to earn that $50,000 salary I made? Was it worth it to me or not? Well, I wrote an article on that topic called Is Trucking Worth It Anymore? that talks about life as a truck driver today and whether or not the compensation makes the job worth doing for most people.

Is Trucking Worth It Anymore?

The hourly pay would obviously hinge on what that hourly pay would be. At perhaps $10 an hour, the math would simply not work. But $10 is pathetic for the level of responsibility this job entails. $20 might be more in-line, but this is just my opinion.

As you see, this is quite a contentious issue, with solid arguments on both sides. I myself would prefer hourly just like in every other job.

Actually, $10/hr + overtime (if the company paid it) + the extra pay, would roughly = out to .43¢ per mile, give or take a penny.

Dan observes:

Actually, $10/hr + overtime (if the company paid it) + the extra pay, would roughly = out to .43¢ per mile, give or take a penny.

Which hours are you using? Truckers have two different clocks running, you know. Pure In-The_Seat time (Like the Drive time max 11 hours/day), or Total Duty/Driving time (up to 14 hours per day)

"Actually, $10/hr + overtime (if the company paid it) + the extra pay, would roughly = out to .43¢ per mile, give or take a penny."

I was trying to get a raise here Dan! :)

Dan observes:

Actually, $10/hr + overtime (if the company paid it) + the extra pay, would roughly = out to .43¢ per mile, give or take a penny.

Which hours are you using? Truckers have two different clocks running, you know. Pure In-The_Seat time (Like the Drive time max 11 hours/day), or Total Duty/Driving time (up to 14 hours per day)

I was going off the full 14hour clock.

I was trying to get a raise here Dan! :)

Sorry Rob, I would go back and delete it if I could! 😅

The problem if you did hourly with overtime is that with the hours we work per week, the taxes will eat you alive after you go over 63 hours. At that point, the tax rate takes a big jump and it's no longer worth it, you actually lose money. I'll stick with percentage or cpm.

Doesn't matter if drivers are paid mileage, hourly, by the pound or whatever. The carriers already know how much they will pay for labor and that's what it will be regardless of how you slice it up. Personally I would rather be paid by the hour but as Brett noted, it would make a lot of drivers slackers.

The best way might be a compromise between both. The cpm forces some drivers to push themselves to get the miles done, while the hourly rate encourages slacking, but with modern technology driving conditions and habits could easily be monitored and any drivers found taking advantage of the situation would face consequences. Maybe the happy middle ground would be with a base rate that gets topped up with some cpm. All I know is that the level of responsibility that is placed on the driver today is not matched by the pay.

I like the companies that have a guaranteed minimum + CPM... however you have to meet a certain min mileage to get that guarantee, so if you slack off you're only gonna get what you earn via CPM , if you work hard you'll get the min amount plus the extra in CPM..

IE min would be $600 at rate of 35 CPM, so you need to do something like 1500 miles that week to get the $600 (that's about 200 under what it would take with only cpm) but if you did 2000 you would get $700. now if you only did like 1000 miles in that week and had the ability to meet that 1500, then you're only gonna get the 35cpm, so it would be $350.

that system sounds pretty reasonable. you'll get a min pay for doing what is expected, less if you do less than what is expected of you and more if you do more. These numbers were not based off any real data, just example purposes only but this example could work pretty well I think. Prime already does it during your TNT (not sure if they have a min miles req though) phase.

There were a lot of interesting points made in this thread, but the most interesting thing to me was the fact that Ashley, who started this thing a little over a week ago, has never responded at all! I suspect that she thought she was going to find a bunch of whining truck drivers who would pile on to her idea that truck driver pay is "unfair," and or illegal, and only serves to benefit the corporate mega-carriers. This is what I love about the community of drivers in this forum - they will shoot straight with you - they will try and honestly help you understand the industry, or even help you with a personal problem (like the woman who recently had concerns about her man bringing another woman home in his truck) with straight forward honest helpful advice. There is no forum like this one around, of course it has to be heavily monitored to keep it from going astray at times, but for the most part it is a great place where folks give straight forward solid advice.

I hope maybe Ashley got to see a much brighter side of this career than she was accustomed to.