Union OTR drivers

Things were quite a bit different than--but wasn't everything? Frankly I have never understood laydowns--especially from a financial standpoint--back in the stoneage when I ran for Big R(on xtra board)Typically ran a fl laydown or Oh laydown--didn't matter north or south--passed the same guys (from the yard I was going to go to bed at)heading to ATL to go to the hotel--even back then it seemed to make so much more sense to me to swap and head home like Buster Brown did? But what did I know? LMAO

 

Miller Transport (tankers) is union, down in (of all the places you would not expect a union shop!) mississippi!

Yourga Trucking is indeed union, flatbedders that haul steel out of Western PA. Nick Strimbu is as well, right across the border in ohio. both pay into the western pa pension fund as well. Wayne W Sell is union, as was already stated. I was watching the ticker on the Western Pennsylvania Teamsters Pension fund a few days ago, and it stated that "CRST Malone" is a participant, and so is "Kaplan Trucking". I don't know if this is just them paying in for the pensions of the long ago union o/o steel haulers, or if they still have active union membership among their o/o drivers.

Atkinson Freight Lines out of bensalem pa is union. this is actually the closed to what you asked, as when someone asks about "otr", i automatically think of sleeper cab trucks with a regular 53' dry box on back. this is all that they do.

P. I. and I. motor express is union, out of sharon pa/ masury ohio. also hauling steel on flats.

There are a lot of other otr steel haulers that are union in the rust belt, at least in the cleveland/youngstown/pittsburgh area. i cant remember a lot of their names, but you see the stickers on the smokers windows a lot down there.

I don't know what mo has, i know Glenn Moore had some of their drivers go union around your area, and i guess the reason was so that they could haul yellow roadway doubles sets and not be in violation of the NMFA. sort of a crappy thing to do, but if i remember right, it seemed like it paid well..

 

Aren't there still a handful of Schneider drivers who are union?

 

There are YRC, ABF etc. drivers that choose to stay out and run the system without reg. home time so i would def. consider them OTR . A few years ago before the merger, there was a couple that was highlited on tv (maybe 60 min.) that ran team with a Big R sleeper cab and they are not the only ones.

 

Yeah, I hear you. Fortunately we don't run lay-downs for the most part. From what I understand, we still run some out West but that's it.

The only time we run them here on the East Coast is when weather shuts down line-haul in an area for a day and there's an extreme amount of freight to move and the affected terminals don't have the drivers to move it. I did one of those a while back - got to the meet terminal and was asked to keep going if I would.. Was actually kind of nice since it broke up the monotony of running the same run night after night but I wouldn't want to do it on a regular basis..

 

I used to work out of Con-way's Sharon, Pa terminal till it was closed years back and a lot of my co-workers there had worked for those flatbed outfits at one time or another..

Though they're union, they're not Teamsters and the pay isn't very good at any of them. I know Yourga is % pay and they often run empty back from NJ or pull those slinkys that they know as "welfare wire"..

I think the bottom line regarding good union jobs is simple - they're car haul, fuel haulers, or UPS Parcel/Freight. The rest are either working for less than bargained wages or are represented by another union - NEMF (New England Motor Freight) is represented by the machinist union and cannot even come close to the wages or bennies offered by non-union LTL's like Con-way or Old Dominion.. What in the world does a machinist union know about LTL trucking??

 

yeah, there are, and they even had to hire a new guy a couple of years ago, i would imagine probably because they were going to be penalized by the pension funds if they didn't keep so many active employee's on the roster. I guess they have a few accounts that ONLY deal with Transport drivers as well, and will refuse national drivers, obviously other union plants. I think some of the paper mills in the northeast are their picky customers. who knows, it might be worth bugging them if you are in the green bay area.

btw, the way to tell a schneider transport driver is the yellow "S" rectangular sticker on the side of the sleeper cab. it is a big squared off capital s, and underneath is says transport in small letters. and all of those guys that i have seen also run union stickers on their vent windows as well.

 

100% correct..

 

absolutely nothing, the IAM is the "company" union brought in to replace the teamsters back when NEMF wanted to run the teamsters out in the late 1970's. I have to agree that they aren't close to con-way, which has always provided top of the line pay, to help keep unions out, but OD? i heard that they don't even pay overtime until 60! they pay a little more per hour, but NEMF easily has the better package when you factor in the retirement and benefits. Even though the IAM sucks, the pension is well funded, and the health and dental are very good, at least around the buffalo area.

 

Yourga isn't a Teamster company - they're represented by the Steel Workers union.. Just recieved confirmation on that from one of our drivers at Con-way who used to work there through a quick text conversation..

Hardinger is a junk paying company period..

Not sure about the OT situation at OD but their rates are pretty good and I know NEMF's are not anything great at all.. As you know I'm not a union hater at all but I do believe OD is a pretty good gig..