Crete/Shaffer is a real bad company

First of all, I will say this, I am not a butt kissing Crete/Shaffer fanboy. Read any of my threads about them and it will show what my feelings are about this place, I post both good and bad. They are a mega, plain and simple.

Now, I am not sure where this wage cut b.s. is coming from. This year alone, on the OTR fleet, they are raising pay, they gave us 3 cpm at the end of May, and we'll get a 4 cpm raise on August 1st. Even the regional and dedicated fleets got a bump in pay, not just us OTR drivers. What other mega is raising pay by that much? They have managed to pay profit sharing all the way thru this long 'freight recession' where other megas have suspended profit sharing and cut back or eliminated 401k matches. The last 2 or 3 years, the company has absorbed the increases in health insurance premiums instead of passing it along to the employees. I am 60 years old, been supporting myself since I was 17, and trucking 30+ years and have never worked for a company that did that.

As far as taking the company to court, what did you sue them for? This company isn't union, you signed no contract guaranteeing you a specific pay amount, so any pay amount they stated is based on the averages the drivers in your fleet were on track to make. As far as being paid for detention, your Asset Manager or Fleet Manager doesn't pay, or have any input as to how much you are paid. Everything is done electronically here. You send in a macro when you reach a certain detention time amount, then when you are empty, you send in an electronic detention form with all your in and out times and that goes straight to accounting. Your managers don't have any control over it.

As far as any of the owners or senior managers bribing judges, are you stoned? They wouldn't risk their freedom, reputation or their paycheck to bribe anyone over a petty issue with 1 driver. Even if they were 100% in the wrong for whatever you were sueing for, settling out of court would cost less than slipping money to not 1 judge, but 4?

Like I said, I am not a fanboy of this company. They are my employer. I am not gonna say they're as great as they think they are, but they are better than a lot of others. One thing for sure, they pay above average for this 'job'. And the harder I work, the more I make. The only thing keeping me from making even more is the HOS regulations, not the company. I have only been back with them this round for 18 months, and this calendar year, I figured it out, and I'm on pace to gross slightly over $100k, and that was based on the pay rate before our upcoming raise in August...this is based on my calculations not a company estimate. So I am not sure where you get a pay cut statement from. This isn't a perfect company by any means, but compared to a lot of others, this place isn't so bad. I have left and came back 3 times for a total of almost 14 years(the 1st 2 times I left was because of endless equipment issues). When I came back this time, at my 1 yr anniversary, I was expecting 1 week of vacation pay(PTO)...but instead, they based my PTO on my original starting date from the 1st time I started with them, so I got 3 weeks of vacation (PTO). That doesn't sound like an unethical company to me.

Sorry 'followers of snackbar', I should have warned you ahead of time I was gonna post something supportive of the company so you would have had a chance to sit down first. My bad.

 

Took the words out of my mouth.. lol I'm really trying to figure out why he took them to court.....

 

And by the way, the CEO is the original owner's son in law AND part owner of this private, family owned company. As long as we stay profitable and my paycheck doesn't bounce, I couldn't care any less if he made $100,000,000/yr.

 

How did you gain an extra 2 1/2 years experience from last years post?

Watch for bad companies

 

Actually, you have lost four cases when you went to court. You listed them above. Thanks for the list of judges who know the law btw.

 

The fact that you had no provisions in your truck tells me everything I need to know.

 

I bet he went to Harvard.

 

If I were in charge of Google search, I would add that the lionshare of drivers are also not very smart....in fact, they are gullible. These companies could be truthful, but the reality about our world is that people don't like, nor can they handle the truth as well as they think. It's easier to seduce mentally fragile people than it is to give them the reality about trucking.

 

When I was in pgt orientation for southern pines. A I think O/O was talking about how the guy that's going to be leasing. Will be able to make a ton of money and also start his own little fleet of trucks....