Knight Port Services-Long Beach-Any Good?

Oh man I'm sorry bro. You picked a bad time to join ports. As I'm sure you know by now that the ports on the west coast are a real mess.

Knight is a joke. To be honest with you. The payroll department must be ran by someone with a brain injury. Also knight is super quick at taking money from you but takes weeks for reimbursement.

The loads are there. If you can get them out of the port. Also all that time in the port and you MIGHT get detention.

Problem right now is turnover. Even in the corporate department. Ports used to be ran by a guy who was actually trying to make this a great company to work for. He left about six months ago and was replaced by a dryvan experienced only.... Well I won't call him what I normally do.

He runs the ports like any other dryvan company/deparment. He seems to think there is this magical revolving door of drivers.

He has failed to bother himself in learning his markets. He has failed listen to his boots on the ground. He has failed to even care for the drivers still left.

I know you won't have some of the issues we do in Oakland but I will let you know about the changes that were made for us.

At start we were told that we would make 25% of the load. 1000 dollar bonus. Chassis are on the way. Shop in reno so we didn't have to go to tulare.

This is what we got. At first we were on the matrix for pay. Problem was we didn't get paid. The Cali guys would get about half their checks. Reno Nada. So the old VP changed it to just po's. Everything paid by po's.

That didn't last. Payroll would see a 800 dollar po and simply not pay it because they thought it was a mistake. So were right back in the same boat. Still not getting paid.

The old VP was trying to fix along with our old manager out of reno. Hell even our recruiter was fighting for us. Well the VP left for another company. Or was fired. I don't know. But the other two were the same story.

It looked as if anyone who faught to make this a better place was just eliminated. Along comes our corporate goons to save the day. In the last six months our VP has bothered himself to come to reno one time.

His first set of changes came by way of our bonuses. We went from a thousand to maybe 400 bucks. And that's a big maybe.

This began the first quitting event. Also comes a new manager in reno. Dude is okay but totes the company line.

Now we have been swapped from percentage to milage and our pay has been dropped. We have now also lost our only local guy because they can't give po's anymore.

On top of all that they cut the pay for going into the ports and doing "extra" moves from 35 to 20. Lol. The best part of this. We now have loads sitting in Oakland that no one will take into the ports.

Overall because knight doesn't want to learn their markets and hear their guys on the ground our reno office isn't going to last. Our VP hasn't bothered himself with even visiting his other offices.

A year in and i have basically been undercut to the point that I will have to leave. I have watched as every single employee that was here when reno first open is now gone. Even the guys who have been running Oakland for years are looking for other jobs.

Knight port services is a complete mess right now.

 

Hey like I said it would be different for you down there. At least pay wise. But yeah its not a easy job to begin with and our dms don't make it much easier.

Hopefully they can get this contract thing figured out. That would make a world of difference for this job.

 

Well the ports down here are bad. But some are better than others. I'd say the average wait time to pull a loaded container out of the terminal is about 3 hrs. And in certain terminals more. I have talked to some knight drivers but they said they were alright. I even talked to a l/o he said its only about a 200$ difference between a company driver and l/o.

 

A big problem I'm hearing from down there is none of the dispatchers are checking booking numbers before sending drivers in. Lots of trouble tickets coming from it. But at least long beach has the second shift. Oakland we have from 07-1530 ish. Depending on the workers and if they want to work that day.

 

Ports are back. Are there any Knight O/O working ports around here?
I have a couple of questions.

 

Ports are not back. There is still a massive backlog in the ports. There is still ships waiting in the bays. It is still a giant cluster.

To top that off now the shore man don't like their contract so they are back to working safe. In other words their working strike.

Also there is lawyer down there in long beach putting together a lawsuit for owner ops over knights bs. That's a terrible to go ports oo with knight.

Actually I think knight port services is going under. Massive pay cuts across board. Too busy trying to use cans as a dry van trailer.

That brings the biggest problem. Its being ran by a dry van VP who hasn't bother to learn his new market. He now has some great idea that he can pay a port driver 12.50 for detention and 43 cents a mile. That's some real impressive wages right there.

Good luck man. Hope you at least work as a company driver for a few weeks before you try to run a truck with them. I have barely got into the issues of ports. Oh and enjoy fighting for your money.

 

Don't worry, Tricolor will save the day.

Knight is already breaking cabotage laws with Tricolor. So why not abuse the ports with them as well?

 

That makes no sense. Since tri colors is a "leased " company using knights tractors.