How much u company guys makin????

in 1996 i drove for a company in Montana making 21 cpm, they told me all of the small companys in Montana get together to agree on a pay rate and then, they all will stay around that area to keep drivers from moving around.. I ran 4400 miles per week in a 67 mph truck, had a route belgrade Mt, to Black Foot Idaho, to Jessup maryland, to Eden North Carolina back to Billings Montana, I left on friday, home on Wednesday... I was pooped... now they are up to about 30 cpm...

 

My last job was $.32 CPM BUT the one before it was $.41 plus
$150 to cross a bridge into NYC
Drop pay started at
$25 1st
$35 2nd
$45 3rd
all after that except last was $50
I was dedicated to NYC 1 load a week every week
Most loads had from 5 - 7 drops a load!
paid $.10 a case when I had to touch a drop which were usually 2 or 3 maybe up to 5 pallets or 300 cases and up!
1 drop was 1500 cases once a month and there were 7 ties that always broke down! That was REAL money on that load! I also got to use their electric pallet jack!
Heck that was great money on that dedicated load period! Stupid cancer screwed that up!

Yeah I loved NYC!
Stupid L/P drivers lost that account because they:
Ran mouth to receivers, tried to bully their way onto docks because the loads took 2 days due to scheduling. They argued with lumpers when the shipper actually had the lumper pay pre paid and they didn't have to pay jack crap except for 2 of those drops which were not every week and they were given the receipt to turn in with the BOL's! Crybaby whining because they did NOT get paid the tolls if they went to a truck stop off the island Monday afternoon because they didn't want to sleep in several parking lots and places of interest that I supplied while I was going through a medical problem the reason L/P's were doing the loads. But all the tolls were paid if they stayed on route! Funny thing was all the places I had on the map I provided had restaurants and lounges close by with better food than a truck stop ever had, restrooms, and a police station close by so no problems with locals of dubious character! Not to mention the, well, ahhh, hmmm, constant leg check that NYC is so noted for!

I got calls from "MY" customers on my cell, yes they all had my cell if they needed something I had and would get me in early but man they were all mad at these drivers! When I got back off medical leave that's when I found out the company no longer got those NYC loads! All thanks to idiots! It didn't matter as I would have been released when the company started the all fleece program and got rid of their company drivers as "we cost to much to use" if I hadn't gone back to work to soon after treatments and screwed up! Dumb truck driver!!

 

Yeah you'd think NYC is expensive to eat in, but you can do really well if you know what you're doing. Better than a truckstop.

Actually took a lumper with me on a job to Lower Manhattan, after we unloaded I told him to watch the truck while I double parked and ran up to a street vendor.

Dude I was expecting "BBQ Pigeon on a stick" (a favorite NYC delicacy I might add) but he gave me the best BBQ Gyro ever. And it totally blew the lumper's mind. "Dude this is awsome!"

Guy works somewhere in the teens west of Union Square durring the day. I gotta find that cart again sometime!

 

Oh no, you got me wrong.
I love driving truck...it's kinda in my blood.
I just think truckers should be paid better for the amount of time they put in to the job and being away from home so much.

 

I can agree with you about being paid more, at least to some extent. However, we are all at the mercy of market forces. As long as there are those who will haul freight for fuel money rates are not likely to come up much. Unless we have higher rates, pay will not rise significantly. In fact, due to market conditions I have seen something of a decline the last couple of years. Out of necessity, driver pay is tied to freight rates. In any case, pay is still well above average for most jobs. If you were in the military you would not be making nearly as much and be much farther away from home and for a longer period of time.

We also have other factors at work. There are still too many drivers who steal from their employers and abuse their equipment. When that happens the carrier has to spend money on repairs and replacing stolen property. Were that not the case the carrier might be able to pay a higher wage. There is way too much of this type of behavior in this industry.

 

I won't comment on unions as I don't currently possess enough knowledge of them to comment intellectually but I have worked various jobs on both sides of the hourly vs performance based pay debate and I gotta say, I'll take performance any day. I've worked in warehouses, done a little framing and even had a stint as an electrician, all payed hourly and the work to goofing off ratio on all was poor at best. There is no incentive to work hard because you'd never make less than the set hourly rate. There was no incentive to work hard because you'd never make more than the set hourly rate.

I worked as a roofer for a couple of years and it compares well with otr trucking. I didn't get paid for felting the roof, popping chalk lines, cutting ridge cap, loading the shingles on the roof (usually by hand on a ladder) or cleaning up the ground if it was a tear off. All I got paid for was taking shingles off or putting them on. The choice of how much money I could make was up to me and I never made less than the hourly guy. I might start out two or three hours behind because his clock is ticking while he's felting and loading shingles and mine isn't but after that, I have the rest of the day to smoke his #####. If I work hard, I can make double, sometimes triple his hourly. Sure I didn't get paid for every single thing I did but it was nickle and dime stuff. I got paid for the majority and always came out ahead.

The question of whether we should get paid for certain things is certainly a subject worth discussing but it's more a question of ethics and ultimately a moot point when talking about the current situation as the industry is not set up that way right now. In regards to the future, sure, I'll jump on the getting paid more bandwagon but I came into the industry knowing what the game was and for the most part, I'm ok with it. I'm happy I have a good job making, what is for me, good money. But more importantly, it's a job that I like even with all the little things that are wrong with it.

And to answer the OP's question, I'm four months in and I'm making 35 cents a mile pulling flats. I average about $600-800 a week bring home.

 

You make an interesting point about performance pay. You need to look at the over all pay rather than just the mileage. Most drivers still make more at the end of the week than they would working hourly in most other jobs. Those who work hard don't mind being paid based upon performance. It is those who want to be paid for breathing without any expectation of performance that is the problem. There are only so many dollars to go around. In most businesses, labor is allocated a certain percentage of the gross. Whether you are paid percentage or mileage you are still being paid a percentage of the revenue. If carriers were to start paying drivers to sit from the moment they arrived at a shipper or consignee, they would need to reduce the mileage rate to offset the additional cost of the hourly pay. Some of you seem to think that their is an endless supply of money and a carrier can come up with money out of thin air. Unless the carrier receives money from the shipper or consignee, they cannot pay more to the driver. That is why sometimes drivers receive detention and other times they don't. If the shipper pays detention it isn't a problem to pay the driver his part of that pay. Margins are too thin for carriers to pay a high mileage rate plus hourly unless they receive it from the customer.

 

I'm not discounting hourly pay completely as there are situations where it's a better model, LTL being one of those. It would be too tedious to keep track of every little thing with all the stopping and going they do in a day. A flat rate just works better. And mileage pay works best for OTR as it encourages the driver to keep moving and not ride the clock.

I agree with you on the money situation. Some people seem to think there's a big money tree somewhere employers can go to when employees start demanding more pay. How very short sighted. The pay situation will always be slanted in the company's favor first and yours second. First of all, these people didn't start a business to make you happy, they did it to make money. That's what businesses do, provide a service for profit. Quite simple really. Second, if you want to make the big money, go start your own business. And I'd be willing to bet you aren't going to be thrilled by the prospect of your employees trying to get in YOUR pocket every time you turn around.

But lets say you're a just and generous boss and since you were treated sooo poorly as an employee, you want to double your employees salary, give them twice the vacation time, paid of course, and hell, lets throw in paid breaks for everyone too. How do you manage this without going bankrupt in three days? The only way you can, increase the price of the service or product you offer. So now your employees make twice as much but they have to pay twice as much for everything they buy. The salary increase is effectively negated.

Now don't take this as me saying we should all work for sweatshop wages and be happy about it and not complain. Quite the opposite, I have always, and will always be in favor of making more money. But you must realize there is a bigger picture than just you and your little world and there is a balance that must be maintained in this bigger picture. Change must either be small steps or take place over time. You cannot push too far one way or the other without risking collapse. I think our current state of affairs with our economy is a good example of that princible

 

How Much Prim Inc Start for first year company?