A petition to give truck drivers more protections from the COVID-19 virus and the fallout that could result from drivers getting sick has gone viral. Over 17,000 people have already signed the petition which claims that the current COVID-19 legislation is “grossly inadequate in addressing the unique needs of the long haul driver.”
Rachelle Tuttle is a team driver. She and her husband run from Michigan to California and back. They work for a mid-size carrier, and like most truckers they don’t have paid time off (PTO), don’t get sick leave, and are worried about what will happen to them if they catch COVID-19.
As Tuttle puts it in her Change.org petition, “If drivers get sick, your shelves go bare.”
“Why aren’t the higher-ups figuring out the protocol?” Tuttle asked according to FreightWaves. “There’s some resentment here.”
Tuttle’s petition lays out three issues that need to be addressed immediately.
First, truckers who get sick are likely to get sick on the road. Tuttle proposes the establishment of a hotline where drivers can get medical guidance and help getting them to testing, medical care, and isolation if necessary.
Second, drivers who do get sick “should be reimbursed 100% of all expenses for food, supply delivery and lodging.”
Third, drivers who get sick should be entitled to sick pay, and sick pay should continue for as long as a driver is required to remain in quarantine, whether they’re sick or not.
The petition is addressed to the Donald Trump, President of the United States; US DOT; FCMSA; U.S. House of Representatives; DOT Secretary Elaine Chao; FCMSA acting administrator Jim Mullen; and Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States.
If you’re interested in learning more or signing the petition, you can do so here.
Source: Freightwaves, change
Petition the price gouging insurance too..so the owner opperators can take there trucks out of storage and back on the road.
I know many owner ops that isn’t have issues pay insurance. Stop pulling cheap freight.
Did anyone read
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-employee-paid-leave
Something needs to done for all truck drivers. I have found it impossible to find hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes. This is inexcusable!!! I was lucky enough to find 1 box of latex gloves. Just remember all government officials the more drivers that get sick the less products will be delivered.
try and order online if you can and have it delivered by home time. you can find mask makers on line that are pretty impressive with filters.
I noticed the same thing with hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes as I drive across the country. I stocked up over a month ago so I’m good. Thought
I would see pallets of these in front of registers at WM by now. It’s taking them too long. It’s not practical for an OTR driver to stop at every $ store or big box just to see if he can score a box or two. Looking to buy bulk wholesale if problem doesn’t resolve itself.
Have connect for masks. Easy to sanitize masks for re-use. Hyper inexpensive.
People often over look the travel section or automotive section had no problem getting lysol and disinfectant….ground beef was another story but has returned to normal…the thing walmart cant keep stocked are painting masks. Oh well i got winter mouth/nose cover and using fish filters in a dyi mask i made.
I work for JB Hunt, and I’m home daily, off weekends, make over $70k, have rapidly accruing PTO (a little over two hours a week), get annual raises, and we all just got a coronabux bonus, free gloves and hand sanitizer and have 80hrs of sick time if we get COVID, but sure, JB Hunt sucks and doesn’t care about drivers, even though I apparently have it better than “most” drivers.
No legislation made them do that. The market did, and they can afford it, whereas smaller companies can’t.
And when has MORE legislation and government intervention EVER been good to truckers?
Damn right. Don’t like the environment, move!!
Are you bragging about what JB Hunt is doing for you? Sure sounded like it to start. Im glad you atleast have that going for ya there. Ill take my own authority And truck ANYDAY!
Everybody and their brother is trying to make a buck off this pandemic!
That’s for sure!
Nobody is going to tell me when I can go home or not.
Amen Nick. These company drivers (recruiter) are idiots. “He makes over $70k a year”, before taxes. @josh, your annual salary takes a seasoned O/O, 3.5 months to earn, running less than 10, 000 miles per month. JB Hunt sucks! and we all know it.
Amen!
OMG! JB Hunt steering wheel holder!
Thanks JB recruiter. Maybe you should spend some of that money on paid advertising, troll.
Good idea. Let all the mega carriers take over. Screw the little guy. Good ole walmart affect. Thankyou jb hunt recruiter. Probably a broker on the side.
👍🏻
Point taken. I am glad that JB has the resources to provide those things for you.
This is a recurring theme I’m seeing in comments in various places – “Hey, my company is doing xyz, you should work someplace like my company.” Well, to that I’ll say some of us like our midsize or small carriers. We all choose our priorities when we sign up, whether it be pay, benefits, equipment, home time and pay, etc… There are things about your carrier that wouldn’t work for me, and you’d likely say the same about where I drive. Not a one size fits all thing.
We all deserve protections, though, and it shouldn’t depend on the size of the carrier, as the current legislation does.
If something is “essential,” you protect it, do you not? If you tell your “critical” workers to go out to the “front line,” and they come back wounded, you provide what they need to recover, yes? Or in this case… maybe. Maybe you just pat ’em on the back and tell ’em atta boy, keep rollin’ while you vote for pork.
Even if you feel taken care of, I hope you can support the hundreds of thousands of drivers who got left out.
Own it, you worthless shill….
https://krdo.com/health/2020/04/02/truck-driver-says-he-quit-job-because-of-betrayal-from-employer-regarding-covid-19-virus/
Josh, thanks for being a moron! That kind of option is not available for most drivers. You have to be in a select market to have that option.
No, I’m not a recruiter.
I’m a driver, and I don’t want you to work here. More benefits for me and we already have enough crybabies.
It’s called the market. Talk all the trash you want about ol’ JB but they’re doing right by me. If your company is doing you wrong, or legitimately can’t afford to do more, find another company. You have that right.
I’ll bet a lot of you are the same ones complaining about the government, until you want a bailout. It’s no one’s fault but yours that you took on the added risk and responsibility of running your own thing, but at least this “steering wheel holder” can feed his family.
You don t sound happy,if all that you said was true,you wouldn t be so bitter.
Why does it matter to you what anyone does or doesn t do? Some like the freedom of owning their own bussines,risk and all,you don t.
What route do you run? My husband ran the home depot and had to unload but was home every night. They kept promising a raise all he got was a letter for two years he should get govt benefits. After 2 1/2 yrs he left. We were tired of draining are retirement act.
The wife
you’re an idiot
I’m done. 1 truck independent with a Stepdeck. 3 of our main customers have already stopped production and I’ve seen regional rates drop here in the Pacific NW. I’m not working just to cover overhead. Trucks been paid off a long time and I quit. It’s going to get worse from here.
agree. it took me a few months to adjust to not driving but I feel better.
We don’t need more legislation. We need less. Remove laws and regs that keep trucker pay artificially low. Tax payer funded CDL schools provide the warm bodies that Megacarrirers need to keep paying 1990s rates. Work visas help keep pay low while the taxpayer pays generous benefits to guest worker’s family. The rigidity of HOS and driver facing cameras cause experienced drivers to leave, so public saftey is decreased. If the turnover rate were not so high, there wouldn’t be a need for CDL mills. The Megacarrirers, say they can’t find enough people that want to live in a truck with a driver facing camera for 27 days a month for 38k a year.
At least someone besides me has been doing this long enough to get it.
Man. You’re just an idiot, really…
Nobody is forcing us to work. Nobody has to pay you to stay home. You should be responsible for yourself. Most of all nobody owes you a pat on the back for doing your job. I’m out here driving I have with me what I think I need to be safe. I got it on my own. I don’t go anywhere I don’t feel safe and I make that decision on my own. So work and don’t complain or go home.
You sound like an uninformed idiot who does NOT operate a CMV and does NOT understand the consequences, the unfairness and hazards that come with this type of work.
CMV operators should receive weekly accumulating PTO, hazard pay, sick time, and hourly pay in addition to milage pay for all OnDuty recorded.
And if a driver does get sick, they should automatically qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act, separate from sick time leave.
The big problem with the transportation industry is commercial drivers (especially company drivers) arent treated like normal company employees. We’re treated far less with even lesser regard despite the highly extreme critical role we play in the economy. But unfortunately, and as always with these idiotic delusional corrupted politicians, implementing such a thing is too much like right. And commercial drivers cant come together to stand up for such a thing anyway, so we’re looked at and treated like bottom of the barrel fast food employees who are too blind to the their unfortunate reality to actually do something about it.
Man…Just one really stupid stamens after another.
Why if you want a petition signed why do I have to pay $3 ,everyone is always looking for something.
Any of these crooked mega carriers trying to recruit on here are good one thing: getting your foot in the door. Do your year and leave immediately. It’s a shame that it’s so hard to do it any other ways. Dont believe these lies that they ‘care’. I was with a mega carrier doing ltl, not otr, for 7 years. Once I got out of that and got my own authority, my eyes were open for the first time in a long time. Its shameful when they got recruiters posing as drivers out of desperation, especially in these times.
Go home. Quit belly aching. 675,000 have died from heart disease this year. 50,000 have died from the flu. You are falling in to a trap. Go about your business. Ray Charles can see what’s going on and he’s dead and blind. Wake up people.
So Covid-19 is a trap?
Yep.
WOW, unbelievably stupid.
Over 60,000 have died so far from Covid-19 and we’re just getting this part going. The final tally is going to make that 50,000 # you quoted from the Flu nothing.
If you believe the low death #’s supplied from China you are a fool.
Well oh well. If you believe what that JB hunt driver said he was making, how often he’s home and off weekends, I have to tell you without purposely offending you. You are dumb as a rock period!!!!
By the nature of the occupation, for most us, and excluding special JB hunt drivers. We have to on a daily basis, fight the animal side of humanity. This means personal hygiene , availability of bathrooms, healthy food, clean clothes, guarding against crime: while literally devoting your life to provide a service absolutely essential to the economy, under burdensome regulation that are personally cruel and inhumane. Every day professional drivers combat this: while most of society takes it for granted, some think it is life style choice, but other just consider us a under class, kind of a homeless person with out the Bennie’s . Others momentarily will call you “hero” when they really need you, then cruse you in the next minute, when you inconvenience them, very similar to how society treats Law enforcement.
This why shippers closed their door to driver, not because of social distancing, it is because they have always considered us a “pollutant”
Fast food joint s in Truck stops, they always were there for the other people, the 4 wheelers, not the truckers. There is huge truck stops chain( %*lot) that has never really wanted to provide parking , Showers & food, all they want do is sell junk food and Fuel, They have been to forced provide more services, not because they want want to.
The Department Of Transportation has completely ignored the Risk of drivers contacting Covid 19 and spreading it. Prisoners in jail are getting for concerns than truck drivers. The DOT has made no effort to keep the trucking industry informed, they did’t even send e mail notification about the HOS rule suspension , we learned of the “essential services ” from Homeland security! They put screening at airports, while they close rest-areas.
Keep on trucking- walk the street for hours looking for take out food, crap alongside the road or turn the cab of you truck into a port a potty. Live in filthy truck stops that sent half the janitorial staff home. The Washington bureaucrats have never walked across a parking lot dodging wal-mart sacks of human waste, stepping over little rivers of piss. they don’t care, and nether do the shippers
We have 3 choices- Quite and wait at home and be human, Keep trucking & fighting the animal side, or succumb and become the animal the Government & big business wants
I asked my company for gloves and masks they did not provide it so I said ok guys I’m taking off for two weeks, I will wait on my stimulus check since you guys dont care about me only the load.
This is utterly stupid…the petition is stupid and the signers are stupid too.
But what does one expect from change.org? Reimbursed by who? the trucking company? and in turn gets reimbursed by “the government”,i.e. the taxpayer.
I mean if you can t handle the heat,get out of the kitchen.
I am totally against this idiotic,communist petition.
Signers of this petition,please,do us all a favor,go quarantine yourself.
Signed:
Giovanni Socci
That’s all good…. How about giving drivers gloves mask hand sanitizers… preventive medicine
I dont want to get sick.. My health isnt greatest these days… I catch this virus… I’m dead straight up… I cant not work. I’ve got a family to take care of.. I cant find anything on the road at home. Everyone hoarded all that shit…pretty sad cause I’m in Los Angeles’s Portland Washington State SLC …totally winging it… I’m not complaining I’m lucky to have a job… Drivers cant get any supplies
They want help from the government? Are they insane? How many drivers have fallen ill from the manufactured COVID-19, anyway? The authorities just need to allow people to get back to work, and stop the fear-mongering.
“Why aren’t the higher-ups figuring out the protocol?” Tuttle asked according to FreightWaves. “There’s some resentment here.”
Because, they don’t give a
Be careful what you ask the federal government to do. The communist welfare state programs were intended to “help” a relatively small number of people get back on their feet. It’s multi-generational now. How much more “help” do you want from the government that gave us ELDs, limited work hours, exemption from overtime pay, exemption from any pay for most of what we do?
I have been driving for over 20 years and now I am Owner Operator, never once have I ever seen the Government do anything to help Truckers. They will give it to us but somehow they manager a way to take it back.
No restrictions or guidelines on insurance premiums is just one example. That’s because part of the monies goes directly to the government.
Protect your family and yourself the best that you can, because at the end of the day they will just find another person to keep pushing the Rigs down the road.
We are going to always be the underdogs but THEY NEED US, BUT WILL NEVER ADMIT IT AND OR REWARD US FOR THE HARD WORK THAT WE DO.
CheeYaah-
Bunch a morons, in the 41yrs. Of Professional ,safe driving I’ve displayed in the lower 48+Canada,petitions,shutdowns and slowdowns have all been circulated and discussed by drivers about these issues and others. As long as “industry “lobbyists, the ATA and the mega carriers buy influence in Washington, D.C., the driver is only a commodity just like the crap in back. I’ve only been an o/o 2yrs.until diesel went from.75c a gal.to 2$+way back when, but I’m a specialist,unlike mr.holding up normal traffic. He would trade for my pay and life any day. Anybody can drive an automatic and drop and hook. But you don’t realize companies, customers, insurance companies and bureaucrats don’t and won’t ever have the drivers welfare and interests at heart. Waste of time ,exercise in futility. Why do you think they LOVE robot trucks? OOIDA is a weak sister too, I spit on the ATA and every big company,that includes their ignorant drivers . Get a Clue,boys
Price gouging everywhere. That’s supposed to be illegal.
We travel state to state, potentially spreading the virus, if infected, etc.
There needs to be testing sites at these truckstops, and truckstop clinic. The only problem there is they want you to shut down too the test comes back. No pay.
The company I’m leased on to, of it’s own, announced it would pay us for two weeks, a fixed amount if quarantined due to infection, or caring for an infected person.
All the platitudes for how appreciative people are if truckers is mostly words.
I’m trucking til I drop. I bought masks, but have no purell, and cant find it, so I took anti bacterial wipes, and poured 92% isopropyl alcohol in the container, and let the wipes soak it up. Should work fine.
I notice almost all truckstop employees, and restaurant workers still have no gloves or masks. Burger and chicken anyone?! Cough, cough!
I really don’t know what they can do for truckers otherwise about thus virus, to allow us to keep delivering goods to grocery stores etc., except maybe OPEN BACK UP REST AREAS!!! Keep truck stop restauranta open, even for take out, and workers have gloves and masks!
I do see a big trucker lay off coming sadly. Too many customers scaling back, or shutting down altogether, which means kess freight, lmore competition, equals lower rates. Layoffs seem inevitable.
Personally I love drinking for a “mega-carrier”, if you can even call it that: FedEx Express!
The thing is we aren’t technically a trucking company, it’s an airline company. We deal with dispatch no brokers, and paid HOURLY! . FedEx freight is also a great place for local hauls with the same company benefits. Not FedEx ground so much.
I read many comments here on TTR. At least 80% of them are negative!! I feel bad for you drivers who don’t get treated fairly by your companies, but you gotta get out of that truck and go some place different. Happiness and health is all there is.
Maybe the general public doesn’t give a crap about us and yes the government too. But from trucker to trucker mad respect ✊
4000 mg vitamin C/day,4000 iu’s vitamin D3/day,50 mg zinc/day,400-500 mg magnesium/day. Get Canada Dry Tonic Water (not diet) for the Quinine.(a couple cans or a couple glasses/day) Known to strengthen cell membranes and forces Zinc into the cells. Zinc inhibits viral activity in the cells.(Viruses behave the same,mechanically). This is a basic dietary supplement combo that can keep you from becoming overwhelmingly ill. You can add selenium,elderberry extract(Sambucus),spirulina,coenzyme Q10,tumeric as well. Read labels for recommended daily intake.
We move through a society that doesn’t recognize what we do, but we do it anyway. Through the nights, weekends and holidays, we roll. Will we be celebrated when all this is over, probably not. Will we be meet on the dock, when we arrive with a load of medical supplies, doubtful. But, you know, it doesn’t matter. Our satisfaction comes from knowing that when the world stopped and everyone was worried if things would ever be normal again, we were about our business. Picking up and delivering…on time. Supplying the needs of our Nation’s people.
Through the nights, weekends and holidays, we roll.
Nice, and Amen brother.
What route do you run?
The wife
” I laughed so hard that I soiled myself !!! Can I get some J B Hunt TP ! “
I feel as though truckers and other “essential” workers should be compensated for the extra risk we take everyday during this crazy time. First reason being we don’t HAVE to work… secondly, the extra “hazard pay” would come in handy should any if us get sick and help to compensate for the loss of wages from spouses should they get sick or laid off.
Just food a shower and a clean bathroom doesnt seem like much to ask for. We definitely dont need the attitude from these angry people who still have jobs becsuse of us