Union companies that hire noobs?

The sad thing is that these are typically the same people who complain about their wages being low and defend wealth distribution to the death.

 

Full Disclosure: I'm not currently a truck driver. I don't have my CDL (yet...) but have been doing a lot of research and am strongly considering entering this career field.

The trucking industry, like so many other trades, appears to be one where you must "Pay your dues" (not in a union sense!) in order to progress in your career. This means that on some sociological level, you're more or less expected to work for "Fischer-Price-my-first-trucking-company" in order to gain a year or two of experience before progressing to a company that sucks marginally less.

Realistically, since union jobs are somewhat coveted within the industry, you'll be in competition for the position with people that have much more experience than you do. You need to gain this experience somewhere.

Just my $0.02

 

Just contact the local union hall and ask them what companies are union shops in your area.

The union near me has a driving school and is next to imposable to get into and 99.99% these drivers become union drivers on the per diem board. Then when a union position comes available they normally get them. Some local contracts even require the company to hire union members over non-union members.

I have a friend that went thru the Teamster training school and got a job with Yellow after being on the union per diem board for 18 months. He worked at as a union meat cutter three years before going to school and continued to work as meat cutter during the time he was in school and the 18 months he was on their per diem board because he didn't get that much work. Normally he only work a few days a month.

 

Union companies go out of business just like the rest. In my opinion it depends on which union you join. They are not all Teamsters. My last company (the best I've ever had) was non-union at the Las Vegas terminal. But down in L.A. they were union if they wanted to be. In all my years that I knew this company the union did nothing for the drivers that any non union driver could do. With gasoline if you screwed up and it was more than once or major you were fired. Union or not. I have never heard of the union rep going to battle for a driver. It's pretty cut and dry with gasoline. The only time the company would talked about the union is when the contract was due. Now that was that company. I have worked for others that needed the union because the company was just trash. I would look at the company and weigh the benefits and potential to make good money and work a good shift or line. You'll find more unions back east than west, good or bad depends on the company. So I wouldn't let the union stand in my way nor would I go out of my way to join.

 

It really does depend on the Company. There are a few contractors I worked for that were crap. I was asked to drive illegal,that's where the buck stops. A firm No ended those conversations. Took their money and finished the project. Memo:Stay away from so and so. Others were great. Those are the ones I stay with.

 

I really wish the union trucking companies would all get serious about having their own apprenticeship program like the building trades do. Just using the guys at the dock. I heard that was happening. I wish it was going on when I was working union barns on the dock.

 

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I worked in a building trades union for all my career, with occasional casual jobs with Teamsters companies, and I can say that I too don't like SOME union workers. In my main trade there were some that were politicals that didn't do as much as get their hands dirty. I live in the South and there sometimes we would have guys come down from New York traveling here that all they did was complain and tell us how much easier they did things there, yea, I can see your point. But all the same, there are SOME non-union workers I don't like either. I recall a case in point, an old non-union freight line I had to work for because I wasn't getting enough work casual at Consolidated Freightways, that outfit was named Thurston Motor Lines, (both out of business now) anyway, there were quite a few meth heads there I didn't care for. I'd say, go for the money and the benefits, and also there is one other intangible, the fact that the unions are the reason ANYBODY makes what they make now, they are the reason there is workers compensation, they are the reason there is any overtime laws, they are the reason there is any kind of safety standard. Without them, it would not take long for things to go back to the conditions that existed before unions became strong. Now they are weak, and things are going down hill fast. You can see this on construction jobs, safety is out the window.

 

Management reprimands you for anything and everything, yet they let other drivers who suck up to them get away with murder.

You bid on a run, and its awarded to someone with less seniority.

You held the same run for 6 years, and get bumped off because one of the managers pet drivers wanted it.

Management decides all of the sudden to make deductions from your checks.

Drivers from another company down the street are making 8/hr more than you for doing the same work. And they have less seniority.

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These (and many other) are the reasons why I would NOT work for a company that isn't union. At a non union shop, there isn't anything you can do to prevent these kinds of things from happening.

 

I once worked for a union company & it was a nightmare. Usually loads were scheduled depending on your ETA at the terminal. The girls in the office would have loads at the shipper rescheduled for loading to match the boyfriends drivers ETA so he would get the best paying run. There was hanky-panky going on with the girls hoping to land a better husband than they had at the time. The owner of the company, which is a 2000 truck company, had to hire lawyers & fly them in to meet with union bosses, to get the practice stopped. Even the shipper got involved because rescheduling loads caused them many problems with scheduling their workers. It just wasn't worth the stress to stay there & work hard & then get short changed simply because of marital infidelity and corruption. Payback started happening to the rest of us at that terminal; like my truck, someone put a plastic grocery bag in one of the fuel tanks and the engine kept shutting down, once while going down Black Mountain in NC. Terminal manager told me not to mention what caused the engine to keep shutting down. One of the guys having an affair asked the terminal manager if he ever found out who put the plastic bag in the fuel tank; so right then the terminal manager knew who did it but nothing was done because no witnesses heard him ask that and the union would fight for him anyway because of his seniority & unions hatred of management in all companies.

 

Did you say "the only benefit to a union trucking company is the pension?" I want you to think about what you just said when you are too old to work and you aren't drawing one.....