What I like to know, they run a driver illegally to make a few hundred or maybe a few thousand dollars profit. If the the driver ends up wrecking killing himself and/or others involved,plus property damage i.e. tractor,trailer and freight. Why take the risk? The sharks(lawyers) will sue the heck out of them(the companies). If they actually treated drivers with a little respect, they would not have to spend all of the money on advertising and recruiting in order find drivers.

Well all i say is whenever any of us drivers are ready to stand together and start trying to get the ball rolling so we can get these companies to be held accountable for the things they do us I'm all in.Cause they seem to have forgotten no matter how many rail companies and steam ships its truckers that keep america moving.After my last episode with OTR trucking im thru with being out there cause i know in my heart i cant make the sacrifice of being from my kids again.I realized no matter how good u do ur job or how profssional u try to be its just no respect for all we give up to make trucking what it is.Long as theres no accountability trucking companies will always get away with the riping off of drivers,lying and false reporting to DAC.If enough of us start the process and keep fanning the fire sooner or later change and better working conditions will come.Its going to be a hard fight and every1 will have to be willingt to go ll the way but to me i know it will be worth it.So if any1 is truly serious PM me and we can go from there.

I would like to receive input from drivers about the unfair labor practices in the trucking industry. I have been in contact with a reporter from the Houston Chronicle suggesting that they do a story on unfair labor practices in the trucking industry. The reporter has responded to my letter and is asking for more information. This could be an open door that would indeed get the wheels turning toward giving drivers a public voice. I am interested in receiving information that is factual and verifiable and that has an impact on all drivers regardless of the company they are employed by. Issues that I think need to be discussed are rights to privacy (DAC), termination or disqualification practices, abuses of hours of service (forced dispatch when a driver is clearly out of hours), and pay practices to name a few.

As I have stated before, and I will state again, I am not a driver myself but I have been exposed to the trucking industry through family members who are drivers, and through my association with other drivers over the years. If there was ever a group of workers who need to be heard I believe it is the drivers of today.

I am not familiar with the various driver organizations that are out there but if any of you are reading this and would like to point me in a direction to get reliable information please do so. Again, I am interested in factual and verifiable information pertaining to labor practices in the trucking industry.

TruckNGal
Please read my story at the attached link

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.

If you believe anything there would be of use to you feel free to contact me and I will provide any documentation I may have. I would love to see this company exposed for there employment practices.

Johnnyr33

I've worked for seven companies in four and a half years. The main reasons I quit were because of dispatcher abuse-forced dispatch on loads that had unreasonable delivery times, poor load planning- which causes me to have to run over hours to make an on time delivery. Or the complete opposite, this is when I get empty in the am and then I have to sit for hours or days waiting for my next load assignment. Also which most of the hours I'm sitting waiting, I'm not being paid for most of these hours. I've sat for three days once and was only paid for eight hours of this time.
I feel we should be paid for every hour that we are sitting while waiting for a load assignment and every hour we are detained at customers. Also we need to be paid extra when working on holidays like every other job.
I don't understand why truck drivers are supposed to work longer hours than the average worker in any other field. We need more labor laws in trucking and more supervision on carriers by the DOT and other government agencies.

__________________
True success is overcoming the fear of being unsuccessful.

Camo, I could not agree with you more. I do not understand why trucking companies seem to be excused from paying their drivers for all of the hours they are on duty. I know of no other profession that would expect their employees to report to duty, do a work assignment, then wait for their next work assignment without being paid. I don't know exactly how to go about getting drivers to work together in order to resolve this problem but I do know that until they do nothing will change. It is my hope that by making the public aware of the unfair labor practices that are heaped on drivers that some change will begin to take place.

Yesterday I sent another letter to the staff writer from the Houston Chronicle. In this letter I discussed the problems drivers encounter in going through company orientations, i.e., being hired then being told to return home and wait for a truck, being offered a different rate of pay than what was offered during the recruiting process, being disqualified due to erroneous information reported by DAC, and the practice of companies bringing drivers to orientation before all of their paperwork has cleared and the company knows the driver is qualified and will be given a job. I also discussed forced dispatch and the practice of dispatching a driver on a load that cannot possibly be delivered on time unless the load is run illegally, and the fact that companies can and do try to force drivers to run these loads illegally. Other topics included detention, layover, and mechanical breakdown pay or perhaps I should say the lack thereof. I ask the question "what other professions do you know of that requires an employee to be on duty without being paid?". I also raised the question of why drivers are classified as unskilled workers. I pointed out that drivers have to be able to control a tractor/trailer combination that can have a combined weight of 80,000 lbs and they must be able to do this in all types of weather and road conditions, while anticipating what traffic around them may do. Unskilled...I don't think so. Driving is among the most difficult jobs a person could do, both mentally and physically and I believe drivers need more recognition for the job they do and more respect from the companies they work for. I know there is much more that needs to be said but this is at least a small start.

I hope the reporter I am communicating with will find the information to be news worthy and will begin a series of articles on the trucking industry. I believe exposure will bring change and I am more than willing to do as much as I possibly can to help.

So, if any of you folks see me hanging out in truck stops in and around the Houston area rest assured it is because I need more fuel for the fire and I need it from the horses mouth. I don't know for sure that petitions to state representatives and Congress will help but I know they cannot hurt. So if you see me at the truck stop with petition in hand sign up and let you voice be heard.

Families and businesses across America count on you folks to be out there doing a good job, delivering the goods that businesses sell and that consumers buy on a daily basis. If businesses and consumers understand the problems drivers endure today they could very well become your strongest advocates.

I forgot to mention one other topic I discussed in my letter to the Houston Chronicle staff writer and that is on the subject of DAC. This is an agency that does so much damage to individuals and there seems to be no accountability for the facts they report. A lot of the information they report would appear to me to be an invasion of privacy. Is it really a trucking companies business to know how many inquiries have been made to DAC on a driver and by whom? Are drivers not allowed to apply for as many positions as they want and accept the one that suits their needs best without having this information reported to other potential employers? Does it work this way in other industries? And is DAC the only consumer reporting agency that doesn't have a responsibility/obligation to remove erroneous information from a persons record? Who grants them the authority to ignore the rules that apply to other consumer reporting agencies?

I thought this may be of interest to drivers. I did a little bit of research on DAC a couple of years ago and I remember reading they got their start as a branch of the investigative arm of the US government. Below is their history as posted on the USIS website. Everyone say thank you to then President Bill Clinton and Congress for making them an employee-owned company that now sells their investigative services to trucking companies across the country.

Our History
Political patronage. A vengeful assassin. A President's death.
Thus began the story that eventually led to the emergence of USIS as the largest investigative services company on the North American continent.
Assassination of Garfield
When President James A. Garfield decided in 1881 that federal positions should be awarded by merit, and not according to political patronage, he sealed his fate. He was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, in an act of vengeance when Guiteau hadn't received the government position he expected for his support of Garfield.
Civil Service Commission Established
The outrage over Garfield's death generated a national movement, which eventually resulted in the establishment of the Civil Service Commission in 1883. One of its duties was to oversee the investigation of the background, suitability, and loyalty of employees and applicants for federal positions.
For almost half a century, that responsibility was in our province as the Investigations Service arm of the Office of Personnel Management.
Formation of USIS
On July 8, 1996, USIS was formed on the initiative of the President and Congress as an employee-owned company. USIS is steeped in the tradition of providing high-quality, timely investigative services to its customers.
Today, USIS is the industry leader in employment background and drug screening services. USIS is recognized as a primary resource for business information and due diligence services and the pre-eminent supplier of national security and administrative staffing support for U.S. government programs here and abroad.

So, which agency provides the same information on the trucking companies? It is called thetruckersreport.com. The DOT SHOULD provide a DAC for the companies. But since budgets are created by politicians...

__________________
jfr
Be prepared.
Don't Panic.
When you gotta go, go. (Assign your own meaning to this one.)

well good maybe adams transport of hammond IN will read this and give me my money they owe me
bankrupt hu, and don't forget my escro either