Alabama Motor Express AMX

AMX offered a home weekly southeast regional lane when I started. I took a pay cut for the hometime from my previous company because I was burned out on OTR.

It was very nice in the beginning. My first Christmas with AMX was amazing with a nice catered dinner, door prizes and awards given to staff. I thought this was great of a company to give back to the employees each year. The first two years of driver appreciation week was the same with some bags of *good* goodies given to drivers including Love's gift cards. They held cookouts during the week for drivers broken down (since the rest of us were working).

I later found out that the phenomenal Christmas party was a retirement party for the owner Scott White. After building the company up he decided to hand it off to his two sons.

That's when the company took a downturn.

During covid and eventual inflation Keith was still the boss. We were denied raises to counter the inflation, so regional and super regional were stuck at .43cpm. Super regional (2 weeks out) had the option of taking an hourly wage which was $20 at the time and now it is $22, but it's only for drive hours. It doesn't include on duty time and no overtime. You still receive detention and layover pay as needed (I think). OTR division was $24/hr with no option for mileage. Drayage and daycab industrial tanker I'm unsure of wages.

The reefer division used to be 23% of the load, but was switched to mileage. I heard it was .60cpm, but I'm unsure. The new flatbed lane is .60cpm. Anyone familiar with the wiregrass region knows that AMX bought out Powell refrigerated which gave them the reefer division whose main customer is Wayne Farms. I heard all divisions will be going to hourly wages for drive time only, but I'm not 100% about that.

An entire restructuring happened where the sons brought in a human resources manager to run the company and kicked Keith out to the shop to finish out his retirement. Daniel Adams, a VP of something, was stuck in his position despite having been there over a decade. There are a lot of VPs of varying degrees at AMX.

We all knew at this moment the company was in trouble financially. They were scrambling to cover bills.

But they proceeded to build a fence around the large field out front and put up signs letting drivers know where dropped trailers went and that we were not allowed in the shop.

They're switching the fleet from Volvo to Cascadias.

I tried almost 4 years to stick it out because of the convenience to my house and I loved the office staff. However, when the firings began I knew it was time to cut and run.

Regional is being phased out to super regional which is out 2 weeks and home 2 days. Weekly minimum pay is $900 with the potential to earn a mileage bonus. I don't remember what the start is for the bonus.

There are no safety bonuses, fuel incentives, or yearly wage increases like a penny a mile (or even a yearly tshirt on your anniversary). There's also no holiday pay and you only get 5 days of vacation no matter how long you've worked there. You cannot earn more vacation time. PTO time is nothing drivers can earn and if you quit before taking your vacation time you forfeit the entire thing. They will not add it onto your last check.

Beware if you are thinking of going to AMX. I'm harboring a guess they won't be around too much longer.

 

Thanks. I didn't want to come off as being snarky, but definitely letting drivers know of the pay and changes.

 

You're right about PTO. Things have really changed over the years for that. I just got a voicemail from one of the kids who said my review is hateful and untrue, but I was unable to listen to the entire thing. I calls it as I sees it. So whenever I'm out of orientation today I'll be able to listen to it in its entirety. If truth be told there are 3 former AMX drivers in this orientation class with me (including myself) and that says a lot.

 

Especially since all the other work is free and there won't be any overtime.