Day rate pay with overtime

No way. This country is too big with entirely too many opportunities to subject me or my family to slave wages. Poor mechanics always blame their tools.

 

In your experience with them, was this the norm for their drivers or were they short drivers so everyone else took up the slack?

My first week of route training, I worked 13 hour days every day. I'm being assured it won't be like that normally. Not that I mind the long hours, i did otr for 10 years. However, the hardest hours of my current days and I'm barely making minimum wage during that time? Not sure how cool I'm going to be with that.

 

Company up my way cant fill the seat for a flat rate run($250 daily) because my employer and our competitors all running that same trip pay for all our time/drops/picks for a gross of $320 daily
No doubt they will fill the seat but not with a seasoned driver

 

it’s called Variable Rate Overtime - or VROT for short. It’s basically Chinese overtime. No one understands the formula. Many companies that pay a daily rate (as opposed to hourly), plus commission, use this type of system. Very common in an industry that pays you by the case delivered (the small store soda deliveries for example).


Edit: sorry to be repetitive - Didn’t see others had already explained it.

 

Best advice I can give: Find a pace that you're comfortable with (that also keeps the higher ups off your ##*) and stay right there. Don't push to be faster, more efficient or do more expecting to get done and go home. In garbage you're never done. We used to say, "A heartbeat and a CDL were the only requirements for being hired." If you finish, they'll direct you to "help" another route - which is usually someone that is underperforming and incapable of doing the job in the first place. There's always going to be favorites and prima donnas that get cake routes, short runs, get to go home early. In residential I was working 5am to 7pm Monday-Friday on day rate. I scheduled routes, monitored staffing, coordinated with shop for downed units or maintenance issues every morning before going out and servicing my own collection route. During the day I would check on progress of 15 routes and coordinate sending "help" as needed each day for a variety of reasons. Fly under the radar - don't be so good or so bad that you are noticed and you'll have staying power.

 

Wow that is depressing.
What kills me is that this is actually the correct advice for the situation. Its not crappy employees that create a culture like this , its just a symptom of an industry that is rotten to the core because its not properly being guided by market forces.
Corruption can be smelled a mile away.

 

Overtime pay for truck drivers is NOT required. Your company can VOLUNTEER to pay drivers overtime, or not. Union contracts can require overtime pay and whatever the union & company agree to is OK.

The law (FLSA) that mandates minimum wage & overtime pay after 40 hours of work per week specifically expempts truck drivers and others in safety-sensitive areas are not covered by overtime pay requirements.

 

Every trucking company can CHOOSE to pay OT but the law doesn't require it for employees covered by federal FMCSA HOS. No matter how many companies choose to pay OT to drivers, OT is not required. Look up the Fair Labor Standards Act.

 

i'm fully aware of the laws. i chose to not work at a company refusing to pay ot @ 40+ and 1.5.

 

I get overtime after 8 hours a day or 40 a week. The industry is changing. Lots of local jobs pay by the hour now.