Are we a bad trucking company?

Hi All, recently I heard that most drivers out there avoid Chicago like the plague and I just can't believe it! I heard that Chicago is full of a 'trucking mafia' run by people with accents.

We have a foreign owned company, but we work hard at creating a great atmosphere. Our drivers are paid on W-2s and NOT 1099, because they are our employee's and we care about them. We don't want to stick them with a tax bill at the end of the year just to give them the illusion that they are making more money than they are.

More importantly we pay direct deposit every Friday. Let me disclose here that we hold a week and half or two weeks of pay, and your pay is on the third Friday that you are with us, but we state that up front right away and definitely don't hide it. This is done for a number of reasons, mostly to get a great schedule flow because by the time you send in your logbooks and trip reports there is a week that goes by and then we have to have time to process that.
It's definitely not done to cheat anyone out of any money, you get paid that money no matter what! If you leave our company you still get that direct deposited for the following two weeks after you have left us. Secondly, we collect an escrow of $1000, this is for a number of reasons for both of our benefits. If, in the worst case scenario, you cause an accident that is your fault or damages, or anything of that nature - guess what? that money is there and it is no longer a burden to cover charges. Again, if you decide to leave us that money is reimbursed to you.

I have been doing this for a long time and I can not stress that I have learned - good drivers are not bothered by this escrow collection or two week hold on pay - but drivers who change jobs faster than I change my shoes and who have bad records of abandoning equipment are turned off by this. Newsflash: we don't want those bad apples working for us anyways so its a great screening tool during the application process.

We have 'newer' equipment - mostly 2010-2013 Freightliners. Unfortunately, its just not our goal to have the newest trucks on the road, but it is our goal to have safe, well maintained equipment and we let our drivers make repairs on the road. Anything involved with driver safety is our top priority. We are not a huge Fortune 500 company that can just go and buy a new fleet of 2016 trucks (because instead of distributing earnings back to the drivers they want to help their corporate tax return) - we are in business for the long haul, and every year we are updating our fleet. We do what's best to keep a great balance. You'd be (or you might not be) surprised at how uncleanly drivers are and how poorly they treat such expensive equipment. I've seen the inside of some sleepers and lets just say - homeless people keep better hygiene.

We try to get you home approximately 7-10 days. I think that this is reasonable. I can't promise you will be home every weekend, this is trucking and anything can happen! Bad weather, bad shippers, and in general bad timing - sometimes there is unforeseen traffic, sometimes your equipment might break down. We can try, and typically we like it more when a driver can be flexible enough to go home every other weekend for a few days.

At the end of the day we understand that this is not an easy job, and most of the time it feels very under appreciated. We try to do the best we can, but I am having a seriously hard time of finding good qualified drivers and I just don't understand why that is. Am I being unreasonable? What's missing that I am not catching?

 

Typically, I like to start our drivers out .40 cpm for the 90 day probationary period. I feel that's pretty fair (but may have to reevaluate) considering that the pay is W2 and we pay for ALL miles, not just loaded ones. Also, we don't deduct for petty things like I hear a lot of companies do. For example they will say you are at .45 cpm, but then it turns out you are on a 1099, or you get deductions for all sorts of things like fuel economy, etc.

As for the benefits - this is something that we are working hard on providing, especially with the demands from the GOV. that everyone have health insurance. Right now we are in the process of collecting quotes so that we can find something reasonable for our company and our drivers - this is not an easy process and like I said, we are small so its hard to juggle it all.

....do you think the pay is unreasonable?