Jobs in ND Oil Patch

So you're saying you're too cheap to pay for housing and want them to clog already overcrowded truckstops, convenience stores, anywhere else they can find to park??? You supply baby wipes for bath??

 

Sir, I am not one to stand up for o/o rights over those of drivers, read my recent posts. However, good housing alternatives are neither cheap nor fast. Fast would mean putting drivers up (at least partially) at one of the Target Logistics mancamps around. They are four grand a month. Even if the o/o pays half, you are still looking at about 10 days of work (net pay) just to pay for your share of housing. Granted, those places make for the most productive workdays in North Dakota, but would you be willing to pay your share for such good housing? Cheap would be on-site "mancamps" which, save only for skid shacks, are nothing of the kind. Mobile homes are often touted as "housing." What a crock. An 8x10 room in a mobile home with paper-thin walls and one shower to eight multi-shift guys is NOT good housing. Give some credit to an o/o who offers the truck to sleep in, because there are o/o out there working drivers on 12-hour shifts and requiring you to get your own housing.

Yes, I have lived in trucks up here, and I know the unpleasantries of truck stop hygiene. But may I be so assumptive to suggest the following: Show a pair and suck it up, or go home!

That said, I do wish the big oil producers would grow a paid themselves and build some small towns to house their workers (riggers and drivers included). Their failure to do so is, to me, a show of no-confidence in the Bakken's expected duration.

 

I would NEVER live in a truck up here.... Sheesh

We just had a string of -20 to -22 days windchill got down to -40 and u expect a driver to live in a truck in that? Seriously?
Good luck with that.

 

I live in a mobile home up here with 6 of us in it. $250 a month. Grateful to live in a semi? Are you crazy? Where I live isn't perfect but its a million times better than living in a truck

 

Show a pair and suck it up, or go home!

Hard to suck anything up when its frozen solid

 

Tell me about it, man. I am almost seven feet tall, and I lived in a sleeper for my first six months up here in the Winter. Thank God the sleeper wasn't a coffin.

Shared housing doesn't contribute to maximum earning potential unless you spend no time there but for sleep. Now that I am out of the truck, I can live in a home and actually stretch out without kicking my fridge. I do concede that it's nice to use a real kitchen once in a while and watch a game while reclining on a couch, but again, that does not contribute to maximum earning potential. I don't know about other drivers, but I didn't come up here to pretend I was at home. Show me the money. I can wait for home to get the comforts of home. North Dakota ain't home.

 

Is idling all night legal up there?

 

I don't know. But it is common, especially since out in the middle of nowhere, or sitting overnight at a well, there is no place to plug in. Oilfield tractors do not have APUs for the most part, so ND is not a state for switching off overnight. -30 temperatures cannot be comfortably countered with any amount of clothing or covering, without heat.

 

This is a revised version of earlier posts regarding a large number of CDL positions in the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana. This post serves as a warning to potential job seekers, and also serves to assist in directing job seekers to a legitimate oilfield position, and is therefore properly categorized in the jobs thread.


There are numerous companies in the Bakken region to work for, both small and large, that provide their employees with adequate compensation and working conditions. The safest bet is to hire on with one of the larger companies, such as MBI or Power Fuels / Nuverra, who are subject to a higher degree of oversight than their smaller counterparts and are therefore more likely to comply with IRS, OSHA, DOT, and Dept of Labor regulations. Applications can be found at:




http://www.nuverra.com/careers/opportunities/bakken-shale-regions/


and


http://mbienergyservices.com/career/




This is not to say however, that there aren't any smaller companies that offer equal or superior opportunities, because there are! That said, there are a lot of companies of varying size in the Bakken, specifically on the Ft. Berthold Reservation, who exploit the influx of workers to the area by subjecting them to deplorable conditions, and simply hiring more unsuspecting workers when their current employees vacate their positions. They are often times deceived into relocating to North Dakota under false pretenses as the specifics of the positions they're relocating for can be drastically misrepresented, and then they find themselves in a considerably worse position than the one they left back home.


Commonly, the conditions these companies subject their drivers to include: periods of little to no work, running illegal equipment that would never pass a DOT inspection, hauling many if not most loads overweight / at maximum capacity, mandating that drivers work for several days straight with LITTLE TO NO BREAK FOR THE ENTIRE PERIOD, carrying no insurance for their drivers, and / or housing drivers in highly unfavorable conditions (if they have housing at all).


While completely illegal, the underlying company structure used to "justify" these conditions is operating as if their employees are independent contractors, which would negate the companies from a hoist of legal and regulatory issues, such as complying with a number of IRS, OSHA, DOT, and Dept of Labor regulations that would otherwise stifle their ability to maximize profits if they employed actual employees instead of independent contractors. The problem with this structure however, is that when they issue a 1099 to their "contractors", they conveniently fail to understand that if they OWN THE EQUIPMENT, PAY FOR THE FUEL AND REPAIRS, and FORBID THEIR DRIVERS FROM USING THEIR EQUIPMENT TO HAUL LOADS FOR THE COMPETITION, then they have EMPLOYEES, NOT INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS and are therefore running their businesses ILLEGALLY. They also benefit from this structure by negating themselves from a considerable amount of liability in the event of an accident or violation / citation because the blame can simply be shifted to the "contractor" / driver because they chose to operate the equipment illegally. The driver is at that point 100% on their own, even though they are often threatened with their jobs if they refuse to operate illegally.


In addition, many of these companies also pay in the neighborhood of $20 per hour without paying overtime, which often times is no in accordance with US Dept of Labor's Wage and Hour Division's webpage Fact Sheet #19; The Motor Carrier Exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), because it stipulates that in order to qualify for the motor carrier overtime exemption, "transportation involved in the employees duties MUST be in interstate commerce (across state or international lines) or connected with an intrastate terminal (rail, air, water, or land) to continue an interstate journey of goods that have not come to rest at a final destination." Therefore; these companies are paying drivers to haul fresh / salt water, sand, etc at a local capacity who do not continue trucking the product across the country like an over-the-road outfit, or to an oil transload facility, etc, then they DO NOT QUALIFY for the overtime exemption.


The best way to differentiate between a decent company and an undesirable one is to do your research, ask around, and IGNORE the companies that do not follow through with ANY of the necessary protocol every legitimate company HAS to go through in order to hire and operate legally, such as background checks, proper tax forms, drug tests, etc.


I strongly urge any who read this to document / record and retain every communication, document, equipment issue, work order, employment complaint / issue, and every other relevant document and circumstance possible while working out here, and to report these companies to the proper authorities. Replying to this post with this information would be greatly appreciated as well.


Information for reporting can be found through the local, state and federal IRS, OSHA, DOT, and Dept of Labor offices, toll-free number, and websites. Feel free to reply to this post for additional information if the appropriate contact information cannot be found.
Location: Bakken
Compensation: typically $17 - $28 / hr, DOE
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or offers
Posting ID: 4245201791 Posted: 3 days ago Updated: less than a minute ago email to a friend

 

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