Experience with YRC ( includes YRC, New Penn, USF Reddaway and Holland

As far as I'm concerned, if your dumb enough to work for YRC and believe they are making and hiding money, then you deserve what you get.

You are accusing them of a federal crime with no evidence.

 

Well, time to give my input. I am a linehaul driver for USF Reddaway. I am based out of Three Forks MT and I cover mostly the I-90 corridor and minor parts of Idaho. I was hired back in June to replace another driver that retired after 30 something years. I am also the first line driver that was hired by my terminal in 10 years. I am 29 years old (which from what I was told is far younger than the average hire of 35+). I just completed my military service when I was picked up. Although I never spent a day of civilian driving, they hired me on the basis that I have 9 years of combination driving experience with 250k accident free miles. Ok, so that is my background.

I am currently completing my 90 day probation and I was started out at $15.40 an hour and $.39 a mile. I work Tuesday nights through Saturday nights and I am off Sunday and Monday. My evening starts at around 1930 hrs when I get my little cooler ready and make sure I have all the stuff I need for the day. Usually at 2030 hrs my dispatcher calls me and tells me what is going on.

Bit of a side story, but our dispatchers are centralized out of Oregon. I never deal with anyone face to face, and although my dispatcher is a great guy, I never had the priviledge of meeting him in person.

When my dispatcher calls me, he usually only tells me where I am going. After I kiss the wife goodbye and give the dog a quick pet on the head, I am off to my terminal (which is 15 minutes away from where I live). Once I get to the terminal, my dispatcher has my trailer numbers ready. Unlike some of the other guys on this thread, my trailers are not prehooked by the hostlers. The only exception is if I am moving a set that was brought in by another driver, and he left everything hooked (happens rarely). I usually use the yard donkey (or yard truck, trailer jockey, or whatever you guys call it) to put together my sets. 45% I haul triples, 50% I will haul doubles (either Rocky Mt or double pups), 4% of the time single trailer, and very very very rarely will I bobtail.

At 2100 hrs I will do my pretrip. By 2145 hours I will have my set hooked up. I always carry my Reddaway notepad (we got boxes and boxes of them in the supply closet) and I will take down the order of my trailers, and the converter dollie(s) number(s). I make sure I grab the right manifests, sign out everything on our clipboard, kill the lights, lock the front door, and finally make one final phone call to my dispatcher to verify the trailer numbers, and give him the numbers to my converter dollie(s).

I am one of two linedrivers at my terminal, and usually nobody is there as I leave. I lock the gate behind me as I pull out. On my return trip to the cab, I do one final safety check. I verify every single connection and make sure everything is the way it needs to be for me to get the trailers to my destination safely.

My average run is about 170 miles each way. I call my dispatcher and let him know when I get to my destination. He usually gives me the trailer numbers to take back with me to my home terminal. For the most part, either the trailers will already be there ready for me to hook up, or are within an hour for me to pick up. I usually go over my logbook or do safety checks on my truck to kill the time.

Overall, my usual day starts at 2100 hrs and ends at 0700 hrs each morning. I try to get my backhaul trailers back as soon as possible so the dock crew can get the P&D trailers prepped for the city drivers.

So... my overall impression: Without a doubt, this is probably the best job I have ever worked. I report to one dispatcher and he hooks me up with pretty good runs. The people are the best part of the company. Everybody is always in a hurry to get their freight back, but that never stops them from taking a few minutes to give a rookie (me) some tips and pointers. One guy even went as far as spending 30 minutes to teaching me how to jacknife a rear trailer behind a converter dolly.

Only cons so far are that I have no seniority... therefor, I am usually the first one to get called off (happens once every few weeks). Also, I usually get shorter runs (which is still fine since I get home sooner).

If you can get on board with Reddaway (or any other company under the YRC branch) I would highly recommend it.

Best wishes and safe drives to my fellow drivers! Godspeed!

 

Good luck Driver! But it won't last. YRC is done in a couple years if their numbers don't improve REAL soon!

Your starting pay should be .50cpm and $20 an hour. But as you know YRC took a concession. And even after all these give backs, YRC can't make any money.

 

Not gonna get into a discussion about wages or the future outlook of YRC. My post is merely about my experience so far.

 

Ya, in NY. Out west it's 24.35 and .607cpm top scale. Of course that doesn't include the 15% give back.

So YRC in NY wasn't part of the concessions?

 

Yeah and Reddaway is 21+ and hour and 52 cpm top out. Still a lot better than any solo OTR position or team for that matter. The only draw back I have is not enough miles to make the money and sometimes no work. Other than that the company is great. They treat me really good, the benefits are really good and free for the whole family. Yeah i would like a steady 1200 a week and I'm getting ready to take a job doing just that. Even if they were giving me 60cpm I still would barely make 1200 a week here. I have no set run either and it's hard to make appointments because I want to work when or if they call. So I just keep my cell phone up as loud as it can go. I'm really sick of that. There are drawbacks at YRC but the good still outweighs the bad. I just like OTR work for some reason. Maybe it's my age, who knows.

 

What is gonna happen to YRC? They have been going out of business since 2007. Every year someone says they will be out of business next week, month, year, etc. They are still here and just hired back almost all or all the drivers that were laid off plus hired new drivers.

As far as companies sitting on money goes, you don't need evidence, just common sense for that one. What about all that bail out money given to banks. They are just sitting on it. What are they waiting for? I'll tell you one thing, if I had a big company like YRC and I though the economy was gonna implode, I'd be hiding money too. Besides who says that it's illegal? They probably have it overseas somewhere in a safe place. There are all sorts of loop holes. YRC is a huge company, I'm sure all their high priced lawyers keep them safe and tell them what they can and can't get away with.

 

Out of the top 25 LTL carriers YRC is 3rd and YRC regional is 8th. Yup YRC is 3rd still. Besides FedEx and Conway, YRC is at the top. YRC Regionals are profitable and YRC is improving. I can't see a top 3 carrier go out of business. That's like saying Werner or England is going out of business it just isn't going to happen no matter how much you hope it will. As in pay it does pay less but it's one of the only LTL carriers were you can get hired straight to linehaul without starting at P&D/ Dock. Linehaul drivers don't touch a forklift or pallet jack. Very rare if they do. FedEx Freight and Conway your a dock/driver. It's better than OTR and unlike other LTL companies I'm treated like a truck driver, meaning I get my run and nobody is up my butt calling me saying hurry,hurry, hurry. I rather take slightly lower pay for a laid back comfortable work atmosphere then a uptight hurry up so somebody will screw up and get hurt atmosphere. Because I don't get messed with I take the initiative to get the freight there ASAP and safely. People are gonna keep working here cause of this. I talk to drivers that come from these other big LTL's and some left YRC and came back for less pay cause the grass wasn't greener on the other side, these guys went to FED, ups, and Conway. FedEx Freight tried to take out YRC by trying to take customers away by shipping for free or dirt cheap but still could take em out and hurt themselves in the process. If there is no money here how is YRC top 3 LTL? YRC isn't going nowhere!

 

Same was said about CF. You say YRC is in the top 3. Well, top 3 if what? They lost 22 million so far.

The regional outfits can't save YRC.