Do Not Go To Schneider

Next thread from op: do not go to Werner

 

I thought for sure you would have said CRE!!!! LOL!

 

At least Schneider trainers don't crap themselves...that I've heard of, anyway.

 

OK so this has been a long thread so I feel compelled to share my negative Schneider story with everyone.

I was once a very happy Schneider driver out of Fontana CA, running on the Sears Dedicated account. We were out M-F and had a guaranteed pay base rate of $550 a week. This meant even if we sat in the yard for the whole 5 days we were on, we got a minimum of the $550. This was something mandated by Sears. Our trucks were supposed to all have less then 400K miles on them, again another thing mandated by Sears. Things were great, I was averaging 1350 a week easily and was always back on Friday afternoon and then leaving early Monday morning the next week. This was as many would say, a great trucking job.

Then the dark times started, Schneider negotiated a ridiculous contract with Walmart, and severely underbid it. Walmart drivers were getting really poor pay, some like $300 a week or less. Obviously they had a ridiculous turnover and something needed to be done in the pay department to keep them around. So what does the company do? They decide to take the money from the Sears account and give it to the Walmart drivers! We were all called into a meeting where a new "great pay package" was discussed. The involved about a 42% pay cut from the Sears drivers. In addition, we were informed that from that point forward, the accounts were going to be treated the same, whereas pay was concerned. The base guarantee was removed and our mileage pay went down about 6 cents a mile. All of our special pays for picking up trailers, bumping the docs, etc mandated by Sears were gone. So basically the company took money from Sears and gave it to Walmart, indirectly of course. In the process the company got rid of its only thing that drivers could really aspire too, which was to get on the Sears account eventually and make the real money with great home time.

I'm sure there are other examples of this, and this is a MEGA carrier we are talking about. But I think it was a poor decision in the first place, knowing that the bid was too low for the drivers to be paid, to then expect other drivers to come out of pocket to cover it.

 

Not calling you a liar, but as large and experienced a company as Schneider is, they made that grave an error? I can see them pulling a crappy move like that, I have seen companies do some low down crap things to employees, I hope whoever was in charge of that bidding process got the boot to the curb. Does SNI still hold the Sears account, or the WalMart account?

 

That sucks that happened to you Morg, especially since the Sears account was something drivers were working hard to get. Unfortunately as carriers get bigger they start hiring more and more employees that have never driven a truck, and as a result bad decisions get made that hurts drivers. I hope you found a better job somewhere else.

 

As a card carrying member of the same local as UPS I can assure you they do not get paid .73cpm or 37 per hour..

 

Yeah they really DID that. I think at the time they thought the most important thing was to get the account, regardless of the loss. Since they passed the loss on to other drivers, they thought it was OK.

I do believe they lost most of the Sears account. Before I left the company, me and a few other drivers had a talk with the Sears account reps in Delano, not the Schneider ones. They were "shocked" at what we told them. They viewed it as a breach of contract by Schneider, taking money from them and giving it to Walmart. They were not happy.

 

Thanks, yes I now have the true dream job for someone that wants to be home every night. I am the only driver for a small company and I work the hours necessary to cover the loads I have each day. I average 55-65 hours a week with a really great hourly rate (plus overtime after 40) and only work M-F, never weekends.

To you newer guys I would keep an eye out for this type of job, it seems the best ones are the smaller companies with just a few drivers, not the Megas.

 

They lost both accounts in the end LOL. CR England underbid Schneider on the walmart account about 2 years ago or so. I heard a lot of the drivers that wanted to stay on the walmart account switched over to CRE. Sears in CA is gone from what I've heard.