The joys of having drivers just keeps getting better.

The trucking companies are going to charge as much as they can get away with, even if you hauled for them free. The way the companies will know that you aren't in the game room at the truck stop is if you are dispatched and you have enough time to get there, and you are not there, then you have not been working. See, I was always by the hour, I worked all over the place unsupervised, the companies know if you are working or not, if the work they assign gets done, then you are working, if it is not done, then you aren't. But, if it is important because of tradition to get paid by the mile, that is ok, what about getting paid by the hour when you are working, but not driving, that is the way the Teamsters do it, and that is the way numerous private fleets operate, and that is the way lots of nonunion LTLs do it as well?

 

i wouldnt have a problem with that except then whats the difference between being paid standard hour or mile?

 

With my son at WalMart (I hate WalMart, but anyway,,,,,) I think he told me that out in Arizona he is making .46 a mile but only $14 an hour when he is waiting to get loaded, and then he gets $42 for the 10 hours off. They work the hell out of him out there, and they did here in Georgia while he was here too, in five days he always got his full 70 hours in. Now if it were ME deciding what truck drivers should get, just imagining, I would say that $25 an hour on duty, and .50 cents a mile, for driving, or $25 an hour and time and a half after 8 hours a day, or time and a half after 40, whatever. But then that is just me. I probably would think differently if I were the company owner. I do remember one time a couple of guy were being paid by the hour to move me from one house to another, and I made these guys some sandwhiches, but I recall one of the guys was eating his while he had my refrigerator broke over on hand trucks. I am not sure, but I do think that the way it is with the truck load outfits is not right for the most part. it would take the truckload industry bargaining collectively, and that won't happen because for one thing they are all out on the road all the time and they wouldn't be in one place at one time to vote on contracts. Maybe they could vote electronically nowadays.

 

When I was hiring drivers for Penske Logistics, it was impressed upon us by upper management that what you are really hiring is an individual who is capable of making good judgements. There are several indicators for this before you hire someone. How long he has been at the same residence, how many employers in the last 10 years, credit rating, all in addition to the usual driving record etc...You get burned sometimes no matter what you check, but usually you get what you pay for, or what he has been working for....
Fire his ###, and consider running your own truck once again instead of being a non profit employment agency. Consider the risk/reward and it is a no brainer.

 

The good credit rating to get a job stuff is complete BS. If a person has poor credit it means they have financial problems so they need the job more than anyone.

 

Or they been working for low pay an couldn't make it, cuz they were being taken advantage of.And there is a lot of that and still is.Just cuz your credit is bad ,don't make you a bad person,yes i understand how it looks like making poor choices,but things a happen.

 

If you study it, you'll see that actuaries look at your credit rating. Statistically, if you have really bad credit, it also means you can't manage things and you are more likely to have accidents.

So there is SOME truth behind it when you look at the entire picture.

Someone who moves a lot, job hops and has bad money skills is not someone I care to put into my truck. They break enough on their own. Don't need anyone giving them help.

 

About the job hopping part. I remember applying for a casual job at Carolina Freight (bought out later that year by ABF) It seemed to take forever to get them to understand that in construction unions it is common to job hop a lot, sometimes I would work for the same company several times, in that industry, you go to the work, but anyway, they finally caught on.

 

So do you put the company down? or the union shop? A buddy of mine just puts the Union shop (Local 49'ers)

 

I think they were looking for companies on that application. Most of the time when I was applying for a job somewhere I just put the union down because they knew all the companies I worked for. However, if I was applying at an anti-union company, I would be messed up writing down the union.