Opinions on new OTR hourly pay?

The company I work for pays by the hour. We all run dedicated routes so if the route is suppose to take 12 hours but you finish in 10 hours you still get paid for the twelve. The other part is if you go over the 12 hour then you get paid for the extra time. Too many companies i was looking at were saying they paid X an hour but in reality they were paying a base pay for the route so if it took longer than scheduled than you were still paid what the route was suppose to take. As a Canadian driver I cross to and from the States each day and the border can take ten minutes or three hours.

 

Do you really think you will make more money by nitpicking your time?

And in the long run, even if you do get paid more for the little things, it will come back to haunt you - and everyone else.

It is the same with raising minimum wage or paying people to stay home.
None of it is free money... someone (everyone) pays for it in the end.

All (or much of) this inflation that is happening now is a direct result of those things.
People demanding more money on the bottom end, and they think it will make it better for them while staying on that bottom end.
But all it does is increase the cost of doing business all the way up the ladder.

It trickles up to make everything more expensive, so those wage increases are a lost cause.
More than an even lost cause, because the price increases - as we are seeing - outweigh the increased wages.
Spending value has decreased, not increased, because of those higher wages and handouts.

 

So you don't have time for yourself?

I responded to your argument with a counter argument, that's all.
It's called a discussion, or a debate, of opposing viewpoints.

Do you think that there is only your side to consider?
That would be rather self centered.

 

You made $1 a mile W2? Doing what?

 

I do percentage plus detention. Works perfect. Salary and hourly will leave you making less because they have to staff an office monkey to micromanage you. Mileage is garbage. They can make the mileage guys do short haul during recession and when you need it most they’re paying the office your money

 

Sounds like MBI..........? Just curious.

 

So how much is bumping the dock worth? What are these companies going to do? Reward you 10 bucks for not hitting anything while backing? It ain't like we are actually unloading our own trailer. I don't really know how much you can expect for some of these rinky dink actions during the day. Even if they paid for all thise actions, what makes you think that we would be paid that much more than what we are being paid now? These loads only pay so much.....or so little for that matter, and it does cost for us to even have jobs so I don't know. To me, the pay is better now than when I began. Perhaps all that is included in thr mileage pay.

 

I agree with much of your post. It is a lot of nickeling and diming that folks are talking about and you're right, to pay those frivolous costs of "rewarding" drivers for fueling, the buck will get passed on down. When it comes to inflation, I can't really buy that raising minimum wage or the unemployment benefits is the sole reason for inflation, especially when minimum wage ain't but 15 in hour and that's not even nationwide. That doesn't move the needle that much in people's income. Costs have gone up way faster than pay has. Pandemic nemployment benefits cutoff nearly a year ago federally and for some states longer than that.

 

From the one company (schneider) that I know is switching and I spoke to, they are not doing it that way. They are offering two different hourly rates....one for behind the wheel time, and one for all the other hours you are sitting around or doing different work. For example, Schneider offered $22 an hour to start, but the dock time and non-driving time is $15 an hour. Only 60% of your hours from what they told me is actual driving time.

So based on your numbers above, it would be $25/hour at 34 hours = $850 + $15/hour at 24 hours = $360; $850 + $360 = $1210. That's almost 20% ($290) less each paycheck. Over the course of 52 weeks that's $15,000 less per year.

They wouldn't be doing this unless it was in "THEIR" best interest. If they are not doing less per hour for dock and misc. time right now, then the rest will follow in time.

And it's pretty astonishing they found a way to get around paying time and a half through these means also.

I also sincerely doubt many of the companies like Schneider is going to pay $25 an hour to start to new CDL's, since they just offered me a job for $22 an hour for driving time, $8'ish an hour for training time, and $15 an hour for dock (non-driving) time.

"The federal overtime provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay."

They must have found a way to be "exempt" which is just going to be challenged in time is my guess anyway, and if it can't be challenged, then this is why they are doing it. Because they profit more while taking advantage of the workforce even more than they do now.

They just found another way to tip the scales in their favor. When you add this up over time for all the drivers and hours in a year, it greatly benefits them or they would never be doing this.

 

This right here is pretty much where it’s at. The bottom line is always the bottom line and the numbers have to make sense to the company no matter what. Hourly, or per mile we’re all pretty much gonna come out the same in the end anyhow. That’s just the reality of it. Maybe for some people psychologically they can deal with being paid by the hour better because that way they don’t feel like they’re doing things on their own time. But your weekly paycheck at the end of the day? It’s probably pretty much gonna be the same.