Calling all ABF drivers

Supposedly a major change of operations coming that will eliminate SOME lay down road positions and turn them into meet and greet turn positions for the road. Supposed to be displayed sometime in September. Not looking forward to this change. Many of our road drivers drive 50 to 90 miles from their home to get to the terminal to start work and they don't want to double the number of times they make that trip.

North Lima OH will be losing some road driver positions because they want to run Chicago to Carlisle, PA in one trip now that the ABF road trucks have been turned up to 66 MPH.

 

Jobs at Union shops especially in the business of Express Courier is currently where it's at right now. If you look at the economy especially Worldwide as a whole most are ordering things online due to covid19. Things have changed a bit as the world tries to deal with covid and get it under control so from March to June (the majority of the shutdown) companies likes UPS, DHL, ABF (unionized) companies. Yes, work is on a scale of seniority so a driver has to put in the time in order of obtaining certain runs. However, I've always found that highway layover runs (hotel rooms provided) there is always opens a few because the Majority of the drivers rather city work dealing with customers, city traffic, not work nightshift etc. If you could put up with pretentious attitudes by Managers, weekly threats of them writing you up for frivilous things (hire to fire mentality), butt kissing co drivers buying gifts for dispatchers in order of getting the newer trucks & easier calls so they can sleep on the job etc.. you might enjoy it. Some ask how I'm able to stay so long at this type of work but because of the current economy situation its a wait & see situation right now because it's super business..they can't hire fast enough for the abundance of work.

 

"....I assume line haul is lumped in with road driver?..."
Yes....

 

Okay, that's a question I had. Toledo was a small terminal, so it seemed unlikely they would have linehaul drivers.

And yes, jobs are offered internally first, but transfers are frowned upon for drivers, so it would mean quitting and getting rehired as a new employee, thus resetting your seniority date.

 

I know of two ABF drivers that are talking about going to UPS package division. One for St. Louis the other for Kansas City. Both have said that UPS is hiring for the road because the railroad told UPS that they can put two containers on a flat bed trailer versus one trailer with wheels therefore UPS needs to pay DOUBLE the amount to put one trailer on a flat bed rail road trailer. UPS is telling the rail road to go fly a kite and hiring road drivers to move their packages. The driver that told me Kansas City is hiring said it was
400 TEAM drivers while the St. Louis driver gave no number but was for solo.

A driver that Left ABF for Old Dominion told me that UPS now has a lot of CRASHES in the Chicago area due to them now hiring drivers right out of driving school. He also mentioned the doubling of rates by the railroad as a reason for mass hiring going on in Chicago.

 

Okay. So this makes it sound like you haven't been around LTL before. This is LTL in a nutshell:

City driver (P&D) picks up a package.

Linehaul driver takes the package to another city.

City driver delivers the package.

 

If they had done that five years ago, I'd still be there. I burned out on the road and being away from home.

 

This is the route I went some years back. ABF to UPS. The accident rates aren't exactly astronomical, but we're trying to get these new guys under our wings and straightened out.