Unions and strikes

I couldn't have said it better...

 

10-10 My Friend!

 

I know your right with what you posted and how it applies to old timers. I am about in the middle, had CDLs for over ten years and just passed my 6th year driving OTR with a couple years of local. Use the power of empathy for some of these new drivers. We all know how this game works the bottom feeders prey on these new pups and steal from them every chance they get.

My father drove in the 70s and 80s, when he retired he was getting around $0.85-$1.10 cents a mile and a small fuel surcharge. Fuel was much cheaper than gas to at around $0.25-0.40 cents a mile. Insurance and cost were MUCH cheaper than to. Today these bottom feeders offer less on lease programs to people who don't know any better that pays a rate of 25-30 years ago.

When I started out driving my first job was 38 cents a mile and when i left it after a year I was 40 cents. I made over $50,000 my first year because my old man showed where to go and what to do. I got a daycab after that year and got out for awhile. These new drivers start out in many cases way under 30 cents a mile, I saw an ad in the paper from that big Orange thing out of Green Bay for a Walmart dedicated promising BIWEEKLY hometime, 31,000 a year, and a 70 hour work week doing all walmart stuff. I can understand how and why these new drivers want to fight back and talk trash. I would be angry to if I was away from home 14-16 days a t a time working 70 hrs for about min wage. Unless the buy their own truck and get own authority they got to put two years into companies like this so they can get insured by a real company.

 

For you new drivers if you would listen to some of these old timers like Southern Pride you might learn something. Unions don't work in trucking because there is a company laying in wait to cut the prices on freight around every corner. See YRCW and it's 12 cents a share stock price, it's close to shutting it doors. It's not their $20 an hour drivers that caused it either, it's the retirement and $25 an hour forklift drivers that did. Unskilled labor should never be over $13 per hour.

Also I have been at a company that Unionized and it sucked big time for the drivers. It was a grocery warehouse drivers were making about $20-24 an hour and the people in the warehouse making from $8-12, in 2005. The Driver's job was not only the most skilled but the hardest because the full pallets loaded on the truck with lifts got broke down and wheeled into small stores. We drivers handled, stocked, and touched every case put on the truck and provided almost all customer service to the stores at point of contact.

Well the teamsters came in and convinced all the clerks, pickers, and forklift drivers on the floor to organize, not one driver voted yes. They made it "fair" everyone after a year would make $15.25 per hour no matter what you job was with 2-3% yearly raises based on cost of living. It was up to a $9 an hour paycut for drivers and the weekly dues were 1.8% of what you make and you had to pay one time dues of $200 to join the Union. The company didn't pay one more dime in labor cost, they just spread the wealth around for the Union. Every driver quit within a year, including me. The Big winner was the Union and the company lost customers and members lost jobs. They had top of the line drivers with the wages they paid without the union and when we left they had to start hiring subpar drivers who didn't provide the service we did. The Customers got pissed and started using other companies to fill orders. Those Organized workers lost jobs and the company got smaller