How much should an OTR driver earn? Here's my opinion!

So does the dispatcher get a percentage based on the loaded miles vs. empty miles? Does he get a percentage based on the minimum of layover days? Does the billing clerk get a percentage of the bills generated? Or maybe the a/r clerk gets a piece of what they collect. Mechanics get a percentage based on the work they do? If it is slow week, does the entire company get a reduced wage like the driver? If weather is bad and trucks average 30% less miles does the entire payroll get cut by 30%?

G/man, you are missing the point. Why should a driver get paid differently from every other employee. You are talking about bad employees and basing an entire pay system based on that. How much of the day does the dispatcher spend on the phone not talking about work, or does the accounting department have impromptu gatherings at the water cooler to talk about American Idol (yech)? If you had a dispatcher who was spending too much time playing online poker at work, would you have to fire him? Same goes for a driver. Every company has a wide variety of employees. Some are good, some not so much, but that is the facts of life. You manage your employees and if you are a good manager you get the most out of them, through motivation and good systems and procedures.

There is nothing wrong with a performance based bonus systems, but when poor dispatching, weather, shippers/receivers, etc. cause delays and it effects the pay of a driver that is not right. They are employees and the risks involved in a business and fluctuations in the business are not theirs to take.

 

what any driver that is paying attention would notice,is that higher performance does NOT equal higher pay, it is merely a means of keeping it so that the company can control costs and its to the detriment of the driver.

what ive noticed is that managers try to keep you at a certain average, your pay is determined based off of what loads youre given, and based off of that is how much work you are going to do,whether its an 8 hr linehaul or 18 hrs of stops and unloading and having to come inside the recvr and fingerprint the load (for the same pay).

so what im saying is that mileage and/or percentage does NOT equal pay for performance,you certainly get more money if you do more miles to a certain extent (most of the time)..but how much work did you have to put in and in how much time to do those miles,mileage pay doesnt cover that or anything else.

its pretty convenient that most office personnel arent held to this "performance" standard, or most any other part of the supply chain,loaders/dock workers,upper management,ceo, mechanics/maintenance dept and the list goes on.

 

I have picked up at Atlas Tube. It has been awhile. I don't recall having to wait 7-12 hours to get loaded. I won't usually wait that long to get loaded. I think I picked up there a few weeks ago. They kept my truck there for over 4 hours. I am supposed to be paid detention. If not, it will be my last pick up from them. I agree with you about not going back to shippers who keep drivers waiting for unreasonable times and then don't want to compensate them. There is a steel company in Portage that I won't ever send my trucks again. Carriers can put a stop to this if they decide to not do business with them unless they pay detention.

 

We all take risks. When you get up out of the bed you take a risk. What about when you arrive at your destination early? It could enable you to get another load on the truck. If you are late due to weather or some other delay, it could offset some of the excess time from an early arrival. Things happen in life. Bad weather is something we must allow extra time for during winter months. It is an act of God. What if you worked at McDonald's and a tornado blew the building away? Do you think it would be right for you to be paid for several months while the debris is cleared off and a new building erected? This isn't the government. We can't pay people when unexpected tragedies happen or for an employee to sleep.

 

I will mention one other thing about compensation. You mentioned CEO pay. Most of them are on a performance based pay system. That is one reason so many of them have such high salaries.

 

Are you intentionally being obtuse? Risk of a tornado is not the same as a poorly organized dispatch that has you waiting 4 hours after unloading to get your next load and not getting paid to sit in somebody else's truck.

Does the McDonald's employee not get paid if nobody comes in to the restaurant for an hour?

If there is ever a job that is easy to monitor it is a truck driver. Simple logic tells you a driver who takes 3 days to go what took everybody else 2 is up to something. There are certain performance expectations in every job. When somebody does cut the mustard they are terminated.

 

You mentioned weather as a reason drivers should be paid by the hour. I simply made a comparison, since you like McDonald's. Tornado's don't happen very frequently in most areas of the country. Nor does other types of weather. But, both can create delays and interrupt business. There is no manufacturing company or any other industry that pays workers when they cannot get to work or the power is knocked off or some other thing happens where the business cannot function. If you want to be like every other business and be treated the same, then you should not expect to be paid when you have to sit due to bad weather. No business will pay workers to sleep, yet you feel that carriers are the only industry that should pay workers to sleep. That isn't the way workers at other businesses are paid.

Current monitoring systems will tell the company where the truck is sitting. It won't necessarily tell the company if he is working. Is he stuck in traffic or playing the slots? There is no way to tell without getting into more advanced monitoring.

There are some dispatchers who are lax or unorganized just as there are truck drivers who do the same thing. You cannot always have a load waiting when you get unloaded. Some of the better paying freight comes at the last minute. If you are delayed getting a load delivered or picked up then it can throw the next load off if the carrier commits. It could be the fault of the shipper, dispatcher, driver or any number of reasons. Some carriers will pre book loads for drivers once they know they will keep their schedules and are reliable. Starting out they may not be as diligent about pre booking loads until they see how the driver runs. It is in the best interest of everyone to keep the truck moving. It may be more a matter of communication.

 

If you have a billing clerk who manages to create 100-125 invoices a day and then you hire another one who only manages to create 75 a day no matter what. Who is being more productive?

If you send a driver on a 500 mile trip and he takes 2 days to do it while everybody else is there in a day, who is being more productive? Measuring productivity is uite easy if you are paying attention.

Productivity is easy to measure. Especially a truck driver.

 

That is why drivers are paid by the mile or percentage. The ones who are productive make the most money for themselves and the company. That is exactly the reason why it will not work to pay otr drivers by the hour.