Werner Enterprises, Inc. - Omaha, Ne.

Why drive OTR for werner when you can make more money delivering pizza and go home every night?

 

I had a friend that went to work for werner,He worked for them for three month's and was home a grand total of 35 hour's outta the whole three month's, He was a new driver and after he got threw there training B.S he quit them and went to work driving a flatbed then a few month's later he completly give up on driving big trucks.

 

I am a trucker's wife, my husband has been with werner for seven months. Whats the deal with with there sit and wait process? It seems like he spends more time playing the waiting game than driving. He has yet to drive more than 1800 miles in one week. And they are always sending him loads that he couldn't possibly get delivered on time because of the DOT rules, or they split out a load when he is almost to where it needs to be. And home time is never on the days you've requested, so don't make plans! Do they have really dumb people working there? Is he the only one frustrated with Werner.

How about a company named Sharkey Transportation. Any one every work for them.

 

The reason your hubby must wait is because TL truck drivers aren't covered by something called the "Fair Labor Standards Act", or FLSA.

This is the act that requires employers to pay 1.5 x for each hour of work over 40 hours. It's the "overtime" rule.

Truck drivers are exempt from the FLSA, so docks don't have the incentive to make sure they load drivers in a timely manner. If drivers were covered by the FLSA, companies (and thus docks) would be forced to pay drivers for their waiting time, meaning that time would be minimized.

As the industry stands, the "risk" of waiting is solely absorbed by the driver, and you know what this means--lots of waiting time and thus lower pay and/or deliveries made when drivers are tired.

I remember vividly arriving at many a dock to get loaded early, only to wait around for ten or twelve hours before finally pulling out. Usually I would arrive at these places bright and early in the morning, meaning I sat around all day reading books and whatnot as I slowly got loaded. Yeap, about the time I was ready for bed, the dock foreman banged on my door telling me "you're loaded". I'd then have to high tail it (sometimes while dead tired) down the road 500 miles on a nice overnight run.

No, I don't miss truck driving a bit. It'd take a lot for me to climb back up into a cab. A few Congressional actions to overhaul trucking would have to happen first, such as ensuring drivers are covered by the FLSA. Overhauling hours of service rules would help, as would overhauling the Taft-Hartley Act (and thus allowing drivers to organize in ALL states).

There's no #### way I'd do TL today given the industry is "market regulated". Nothing was deregulated when deregulation arrived. Truck drivers simply traded one set of regulations for another. Unfortunately, drivers are the losers with the new "arrangements". Michael Belzer covers it all quite nicely in his book "Sweatshops on Wheels". I recommend you get this book (from Amazon) and give it a read. Your husband can get it and read it the next time he's sitting at a dock not getting paid for his time.

 

When most people get into trucking, they get right back out after a short time. This is because it doesn't take long for them to figure out how much (or how LITTLE) they are gonna make while driving large cars.

One can make good money (without working himself beyond human endurance) in trucking at the unionized, LTL carriers. That's about it. If he works TL, non-union jobs, he'll be making about minimum wage or only slightly above when he accounts for ALL his time.

On top of this, he'll be living in a truck for weeks at a time and eating expensive truck stop food at least sometimes. Great life, eh?

No thank you.

 

I have actually worked for Werner(2 months) & have delivered pizzas for Domino's off & on 5 years ago before I got my CDL. I would have to say that you definately make more $$ delivering pizzas. I also live in a vacation hotspot( near Pensacola Beach), during tourist season, if you were late driver, you could make 40-50 dollars a night just in tips! Plus not near the B.S. you have to put up with driving OTR. BTW, how are these companies able to hire or lure non-english speaking drivers, aside from the legallity of it, as TurboTrucker pointed out, I really don't see how a person could drive OTR & not understand the english language. Especially communicating with shippers/consignees/DOT. What if they need directions somewhere? I guess we should all get used to it though, I believe in the near future, thanks to greedy companies & wimpy & corrupt politicians, there will be a HUGE influx of non-english speaking drivers in the U.S.A.

 

When was the last time you went to a shipper/reciever and the people on the dock could speak english.

I just cant understand if they have to know how to read /speak english why on earth would you need to put your advertisement in spanish

 

I've done the pizza delivery thing. I'll pass on that. Stingy customers, minimum wage, and the off chance you could get mugged. Plus you have to pay for your own gas. At least most trucking companies have fuel programs.

Working at Wal-Mart was no picnic either. Seems like every store requires at least one cashier to be fluent in Spanish.

 

I work with a former Werner driver--he has nothing bad to say about the company except his first road trainer was a dingbat.