Walmart Truckers Score $100 Million Lost Wages Victory In Court

Sorry G, kinda misquoted you there. G-town said:

I am neither sympathetic or critical regarding this suit. Again I hold steadfast to my belief that many of their points are relevant and like I have said can possibly enable consistent compensation for all the work a truck driver performs while not driving.

"...Consistent compensation for all the work a truck driver performs while not driving." I think that would be great and it's one of the problems with just flat mileage pay. I just don't think sleeping counts.

Perhaps this lawsuit was not initiated by drivers at all, but merely a driver's brother-in-law that was a hungry lawyer. Perhaps the case was made that Walmart would gladly put up the money for a hotel room for a driver (read spend company money to ensure a driver has a place to sleep) yet how dare they have a policy where if a driver chooses to sleep in the truck that he doesn't "share" in the bonus of saving the company that money by being "reimbursed" for that choice. I'm not saying I'm buying it, but I guess a judge did. It's a principle thing, and not relevant if overall pay at Walmart is high, medium or low compared to other carriers.

Also, my two cents, I think I've heard the reason Walmart has its own fleet the way it is is for efficiency of scale and control, not necessarily cost. The DC near my home has literally hundreds of trailers around it, loaded with product. These trailers are treated like extensions of the warehouse. Perhaps it saves tax money or real hard cash to have that much space devoted to storage over a metal building; don't know. But I'm sure they love the ability to control with their own drivers the constant shuffling of these mini warehouses over a reliance on outside carriers that may or may not show up on time, be cautious drivers, etc etc. From a control aspect, I can see why this makes sense.

Perhaps this lawsuit was not initiated by drivers at all, but merely a driver's brother-in-law that was a hungry lawyer. Perhaps the case was made that Walmart would gladly put up the money for a hotel room for a driver (read spend company money to ensure a driver has a place to sleep) yet how dare they have a policy where if a driver chooses to sleep in the truck that he doesn't "share" in the bonus of saving the company that money by being "reimbursed" for that choice. I'm not saying I'm buying it, but I guess a judge did. It's a principle thing, and not relevant if overall pay at Walmart is high, medium or low compared to other carriers.

Also, my two cents, I think I've heard the reason Walmart has its own fleet the way it is is for efficiency of scale and control, not necessarily cost. The DC near my home has literally hundreds of trailers around it, loaded with product. These trailers are treated like extensions of the warehouse. Perhaps it saves tax money or real hard cash to have that much space devoted to storage over a metal building; don't know. But I'm sure they love the ability to control with their own drivers the constant shuffling of these mini warehouses over a reliance on outside carriers that may or may not show up on time, be cautious drivers, etc etc. From a control aspect, I can see why this makes sense.

Vending Dude the DC operation doesn't work this way. I don't have time to write a thorough response...I will later.

Vendingdude wrote:

The DC near my home has literally hundreds of trailers around it, loaded with product. These trailers are treated like extensions of the warehouse. Perhaps it saves tax money or real hard cash to have that much space devoted to storage over a metal building; don't know. .

Vendingdude, Every Walmart DC has hundreds of trailers. They are not there to serve as mini-warehouses. The premise of storing product at a Walmart DC (especially a grocery DC) in Walmart trailers is an unlikely scenario, unless it's short term. Walmart DCs do not operate like a wholesaler, manufacturer's logistics/distributor, freight forwarder, or middle layer. They do not as a rule "warehouse" product on their trailers, especially reefers. They are on the very back end of the supply chain, where time spent is money lost and efficiency is critical to quality customer service and retention. The primary purpose of the DC is to receive loads of product either loaded on their trailers (more on that later), outside carrier, or on the vendor's trailer (like Tyson). They break down the inbound product, tag it, temporarily store it, consolidate it, individually re-palletize, and re-tag (by store number) it for shipment to a retail store or Sam's Club. Any trailer loaded by the DC, dry or reefer , rarely sits for more than 8 hours, especially time-sensitive perishable loads. Any extraneous storage or product movement reduces profitability. Get "it" in and get "it" out as soon as possible. Their number one priority is to quickly and efficiently replenish the shelves of their stores and stay ahead of seasonal demand to avoid shortages. Things do not sit and usually do not have loaded trailers waiting to be shuttled to another DC, that is a rare occurrence. Most Walmart trailers, inbound load to the DC, is a vendor back haul that occurred after the final stop of a store delivery trip route. I can think of only one time in four years when I was deadheaded directly to a vendor without any preceding store deliveries. It is however SOP to pick-up a backhaul destined for another DC, deliver it, and then run store loads in that DC's territory, eventually routed back to the home DC. This process is the same for me as it is for any WMPF driver. I am a frequent visitor of the Johnstown NY DC (near Albany). I have run for 3 days straight once before being routed back to Gordon PA.

Trailers, trailers, and more trailers. Unless in the "for-repair" line, the reefers (for example) turnover completely; from empty, to loaded, returned empty, loaded again in a 24 hour period. Where I work at 7030, on average 200 store loads are delivered during a 24 hour period, Swift handles half of those, WMPF handles the other half. Not really sure what is going on in UT and if you can substantiate it. If what you are describing is true, it's likely a temporary fix/workaround to a problem, like constrained capacity or construction within the facility. But I am reasonably sure they turn their trailers over like every other DC, and they do it fast. Case in point; on Black Friday there were only a handful of reefers on the empty line, about 12 loads on the ready line and every bay door on the outbound wet-side of the DC was occupied. I grabbed my loaded reefer and ran... When I returned nine hours later, spotted my reefer in the empty line, there were very few open parking slots (like a truck stop at 1800 on a weekday), empties far outnumbered the ready loads by a 4-1 margin. It's a constant, infinite churn...only stopping for a few hours three times per year; Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Your comment:

Also, my two cents, I think I've heard the reason Walmart has its own fleet the way it is for efficiency of scale and control, not necessarily cost.

.

To counter your point, full control of operational process and efficiency most definitely reduces cost. Otherwise, why do it? If there is no tangible business benefit, it only adds to the burden of overhead and management.

You also wrote this:

But I'm sure they love the ability to control with their own drivers the constant shuffling of these mini warehouses over a reliance on outside carriers that may or may not show up on time, be cautious drivers, etc etc. From a control aspect, I can see why this makes sense

Not exactly...they absolutely rely on transportation service partners, aka outside carriers. All of the major carriers have multi-million dollar contracts with Walmart to outsource the transportation and delivery of their product from the DC to their stores and from their vendors back to the DC (Swift, Schneider, Werner, Prime, US Express, etc). As a Swift Dedicated driver I am responsible to adhere to the same levels of service and safety standards as any WMPF driver. If I am unable to perform, I am basically out of a job. I have been driving on this assignment for almost four years and never (knock on wood) missed a delivery and zero accidents. Every year Walmart hires at least 2 Swift drivers from our ranks to their private fleet. This is why I emphatically have written; the absolute best way to gain entry into Walmart's Private Fleet is through one of their transportation service partners. Walmart knows as much about my driving record as Swift does. No guesswork and they do not need to retrain.

I am just jumping in here based on the comments that walmart does not need to make a profit on trucks or they do it because they can do it cheap.

I have been looking at starting my own company and with that comes the requirement to have trucks. The things that I have to consider are the cost of processing the product, disposal of the product and movement of the product. The trucking would be run as a separate entity because if someone were to get into an accident it will help protect the other assets. Just think of the Tracy Morgan crash, they gave his kids 10 million and an undisclosed amount to Tracy himself. The trucking company has to pay for that not the mother ship.

You CANNOT run a private fleet without making a profit. Equipment MUST be replaced at the end of it's useful life. You cannot do that by breaking even. Now in my situation, I cannot justify running the trucking portion of the operation if I cannot make a profit on the trucking. It has to make it on it's own without any help from the mother ship.

Think of it like an alligator, the mother watches over the little ones for a while but she does not feed them. They are on their own to live or die.

I have since determined that I cannot make money on both simply because the market will not sustain it at the current prices. Oh well, on to other ideas.

Lmao best quote of the day!

$80,000-$100,000 a year they weren't eating Ramen Noodles and Mac-n-cheese, but they might be soon.

I hope my comments won't offend but hopefully while the over the top aspect of being paid for sleeping is going to bring attention to the well paid top notch drivers who work for Walmart it will hopefully also cause a look and discussion for the remaining drivers who put in their 70 hr weeks and the wages they receive. Compare that to any other industry and $80,000 isn't out of line assuming $20 per hour is an average wage for a skilled worker in the U.S.. Especially considering the trade off required with the life style assuming again that home every night and ability to have a family are still considered desirable. Maybe employment standards should be raised for an industry that can't seem to get it together. I do believe in the pay per mile as the best way to ensure trucks are moving just more consideration for the rest of the unpaid hours. Some will say that if they add in one area then they take from another but like every other industry money always floats to the top as it should be however if their is a shortage of drivers or just not enough to keep the competition for low wages going. The discussion needs to happen and I'd heard it somewhere before there is no such thing as bad publicity. JMO

I never write on here but instead of criticizing the drivers for Walmart and there whining, we should join them on that same demand with all the other companies. WE SHOULD ALL GET PAID FOR GUARDING THEIR FREIGHT AND MORE!!!

That's a start... we have more power if we demand together.

This thread is 5 years old but I'll bite. How are you guarding their load? Personally if I'm out overnight I'm not worried about the load. I'll check the reefer before I go to my hotel and check it again when I come back to the truck after my break. If I'm in a sleeper I'll take a peak (2 seconds of my time) anytime I'm on my way back to the truck to ensure the reefer is operating properly. If anyone wants to break in have at it. I'll let the police, and insurance companies do their jobs.

Would it be nice to be paid for the days and time we're away from home? Absolutely, however we know it's part of this career/lifestyle. My employer run primarily daycabs so if we're out overnight we pick a hotel we want that's part of the CLC Lodging program and my employer takes care of the bill. If our backhaul load will not be ready by the time our 14 is out we'll be told bobtail to a hotel and they'll pay us for our 10 hour break, roughly $300. We're reimbursed up to $15 for a meal every day we need to take our 10 hour break on the road.

If you insist to be paid the equivalent of roughly $80 (10 hours at minimum wage) extra per day carriers will just adjust their pay rates. In an industry where profit margins are already super tight they may cut bonus pay, CPM , or even breakdown pay. If the carrier you currently work for doesn't pay you in a way you feel is acceptable then look elsewhere.

Rob wrote...

This thread is 5 years old but I'll bite. How are you guarding their load? Personally if I'm out overnight I'm not worried about the load. I'll check the reefer before I go to my hotel and check it again when I come back to the truck after my break. If I'm in a sleeper I'll take a peak (2 seconds of my time) anytime I'm on my way back to the truck to ensure the reefer is operating properly. If anyone wants to break in have at it. I'll let the police, and insurance companies do their jobs.

Would it be nice to be paid for the days and time we're away from home? Absolutely, however we know it's part of this career/lifestyle. My employer run primarily daycabs so if we're out overnight we pick a hotel we want that's part of the CLC Lodging program and my employer takes care of the bill. If our backhaul load will not be ready by the time our 14 is out we'll be told bobtail to a hotel and they'll pay us for our 10 hour break, roughly $300. We're reimbursed up to $15 for a meal every day we need to take our 10 hour break on the road.

If you insist to be paid the equivalent of roughly $80 (10 hours at minimum wage) extra per day carriers will just adjust their pay rates. In an industry where profit margins are already super tight they may cut bonus pay, CPM , or even breakdown pay. If the carrier you currently work for doesn't pay you in a way you feel is acceptable then look elsewhere.

I agree. Tell us more...

And in case you don’t know this; most WM Private Fleet drivers are very happy with their employer. I see many of them every day...

Great 1st post. Keep ‘em coming.