Carriers saving money on the backs of drivers! What's a better way?

How to cut costs? Look at a company like Covenant. Has anybody seen the main terminal? Mostly empty, and waisting cash. Then they purchased a hotel to warehouse the drivers.Just like Werner.Huge terminal,a company hotel across the highway.Look at Swift, the same, a huge terminal,drivers quarters to warehouse the drivers.Next, look at USEXPRESS, has anyone seen the terminal in CA.? It looks like a hotel.
These are more like monuments that stroke the egos of the owners.The drivers pay for all of this.As long as their egos need stroking, drivers will get paid piddly squat.
Look at the terminal for SRT in texarkana, a shack, yet they had crap equipment. The money of course went to the pockets of the higherups.Granted they all have huge expenses, but the drivers that do the work,stay away from familly,deal with the weather and roads,the shippers and cosignees,the law and their crap, DESERVE THE BIGGER PART OF THE PIE!

 

Don't frget about Prime. Their terminal in Springfield is like something a small CULT would have

 

Like most American companies today, you have to start at the top, where the CEO "only" make $500,000 a year, but all the other goodies tacked on puts them in the millions of dollars a year range, plus do you really think that the CEO of said company is on the same health plan as the drivers?

So who pays for that? You can cut corners for so long, but after awhile you will nick something and start to bleed. Companies claim that paying a driver is the most costly thing they do, but I have not made more than my truck eats a year in fuel.

 

I wonder how much the NEW JET the Knight family bought costs the drivers? Do you think a lowly driver will ever get to ride in it?

Only if he is cleaning the bathroom!

 

Chop at the top.........

 

I'm sorry, but I think it's way overdue that companies start tightening the reins on a lot of this stuff.
Idling Walk thru any truck stop/rest area and see how many trucks are idling for no reason, often times unoccupied. Who's paying for that wasted fuel?
Fuel In the last 2 months, I've averaged 1500 gallons per month...1500 X $3.00 per gallon = $4500 per month in fuel, or $54000 a year, just in fuel, and that's only 1 truck. There's a huge savings there if you can cut back on each drivers waste.
Damaged equipment Watch in the morning and see how many drivers fire 'em up and roll down the road, not bothering to do a pre-trip. Watch 'em rolling down the road and not even bother to dodge the rough spots. Watch 'em slam the docks at the warehouse, or slam the kingpin when they hook up. You think that doesn't cause premature wear and tear? Even in the smallest degree, multiplied over a few thousand power units and trailers...and who pays for that? Knight is now threatening to charge drivers $50 for dropping trailers on the asphalt instead of the concrete pads...I say God bless 'em. If you don't have better sense than to drop a trailer on asphalt in 100+ temps, then don't let the door hit ya...

Bottom line is everyone wants to act like it's the bossman's duty to provide you with the income that you think you deserve, no matter what. But where do you think that income comes from? And when times get rough and it's time to start tighteneing the belt, well take it from the other guy, because that piece of the pie more than him.

 

Couldn't tell ya, and I really could care less...as long as they don't ask me how much my new car cost me, then we're good.
As for riding in it...get serious. I run my miles, they sign the paycheck every Friday, and that's the extent of it. I don't have the slightest desire to ride in their jet.

 

Depends really.

I've had equipment that was damaged when I grabbed it out of the yard, driven it to the shop, written up the damage, damage wasn't repaired, turned in unit, year later, run into it again, different driver in it, going in for the same thing that I had written up a year before.

some companies take care of the equipment, other companies, they cut out maintenance as a way to keep their (CEO) wages high. Any "training" company is going to have some learning mistakes to their equipment, but the last time I had a mirror ripped off my truck, it was a old timer who did it, in the company yard!

At least it was at a shop so I didn't have far to go for repairs.

 

All of that is true, but there are two sides to every coin.

Common-sense idling policies? I think we can all agree that it's reasonable for the company to want to save money on fuel. A good employee should even want to save the company money on fuel.

But when I work at a company for two years and average ~30% idle for just about all of my time there, and then get a verbal smackdown because I had 50+% idle in January '09 -- despite that I spent that entire month in the upper midwest during one of the worst winters in recent history, and was, in fact, in compliance with the company's own policies with respect to keeping the engine warm in extremely cold conditions -- there's something screwy there.

(Man, that was a long sentence.)

As long as the enforcement for idle policies is based on an automated process, they will cause resentment. I'm usually more than happy to leave the truck off; the company should accord me the same respect, allowing me to idle when conditions warrant it.

It costs money to idle, but it costs more money to pay for crashes caused by exhausted drivers.

As far as damaged equipment goes, you have a point, but as always there's also a counter point. If (for all intents and purposes) the sole source of drivers' meager pay weren't mileage, then they might actually give a crap about the equipment -- which by the way is rarely in pristine condition to begin with.

There's an old saying, "If you subsidize something, you'll get more of it." And so companies generally get what they pay for -- a host of fatigued (and often under-trained) drivers who are desperate to put as many miles behind them as they can, every day, all other concerns be ######.

And if trucking companies would stop punishing and/or blackballing people for the smallest mistakes, then perhaps more drivers would honestly report flaws in equipment, whether they caused them or not.

If shoddy performance is truly a concern, then some of the bigger companies might do well to revisit hiring, training, and payment practices. Some people will always put out shoddy work no matter how well trained or paid they are; it's true -- but it's also true that if you treat a class of people like worthless vagabonds, you'll tend to get worthless vagabonds.