Marten Driver (currently)

Starting CPM depends of experience, all have APUs (mostly TK, some Carrier), home-time is 5:1 (sometimes a pain to get home on time depending on your FM), no slip seat (they will "borrow" your truck or clear you out of it if you're off for, like, 2 weeks), riders over 10.

What working relationship? Your experience is going to depend directly on your regular FM and your fleet. It's a big company and there's a lot of hurry up and wait. Other than that, read through the three or four threads about marten and see for yourself.

My opinion: it's a job.

 

Yes go thru all the marten posts here. Yes once a upon a time they were a Great company..

I agree, ,, It's a Job

Time to go file my weekly unemplyment claim

 

I realize that the CPM will be determined by my experience, but I am looking for the low eng of the scale, that way I wont be disappointed. I am hoping that my 21 years of local driving experience will count for something, but I am not betting on it.
Would you be able to take the tractor home during home time?
What I meant by working relationship was how does the drivers and the rest of the company tend to get along, is it a friendly/helpful environment or a hostile one. Well it has been my experience that the hurry up and wait is just part of the trucking industry and the military.I have been reading the treads about Marten, but wanted the info from those in the trenches .

 

If you don't have otr experience you may start at lower cpm, maybe 36 cents. If you live more then 75 miles from a terminal then you can take the truck and trailer home. I would say they are a "professional" enviroment. Being happy there will depend on who you get for a fleet manager.(dispatcher) Some fleet managers are very good, and some not so good. Look for an average 2000-2400 miles per week, with occasionally 3000. (not often)

 

Talked to a recruiter a few days ago and was told that with 8 months OTR experience starting cpm would only be about .265! Can't remember how quickly that would increase.

 

I agree, years ago, they were great to work for, back in the late 90's. Randy would actually go to bat for you if you where in the right.

 

A friend of mine that still is with Marten, crunched some numbers the other night,
and came up the downside of being on FORCED PER DIEM as Marten pays.

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Per Diem benefits the company through the lack of having to pay social security taxes on those wages. If they take $.14 from your taxable wages and pay them in the form of non-taxable wages, (Per Diem), they reduce the taxable wages their responsible for by 40%. An example is as follows: Trucker averages 400 miles per day. $.14 x ...400 = $56.00. $56.00 x 7.5% social security taxes = $4.20 in money saved on social security taxes per driver per day. Take $4.20 x 275 days (avg. # of days a trucker spends on the road) = $1,155.00 in money saved for the company. Now take $1,155.00 x 2,200 drivers = $2,541,000.00 in total money saved by the company. That’s over 2 ½ million dollars saved by paying their drivers Per Diem instead of paying them normal taxable wages.






.

 

And don't forget the same holds true for Unemployment as well as workman's comp. Both of those are based on your taxable income. As a current Marten driver I guess it wouldn't gall me quite so much if they didn't keep trying to tell us what a wonderful thing per diem is for us. By maximizing your claimed exemptions on your W-4 and contributing to a 401-k, you can accomplish the same thing as per diem without losing the CPM that we do.

And please don't get me started on that "Fair Pay" scam. That just pisses me off even more.

 

Go try and get a mortgage, and bring some tissues. I guarantee you'll need them to dry your mournful tears when you realize the bank looks only at your gross (the small number on per diem). I only made 22k last year according to that.

 

Some companies will issue a letter that states how per diem works.... how the after-tax is in addition to the gross. Might try to call Payroll, see if they'll do that. Or bring a copy of your W-2 with you and explain how it works yourself. Try that with a smaller bank that isn't staffed with mostly automatons.