New Pay Program

Wow, they are really winning the confidence of their L/O and O/O with this 'gimmick.' "We need you. Get screwed one way or the other, which poison do you want?"

 

Well.....rechecked my last 14 weeks and surprisingly I'm solidly at 7% mt miles average per week....could have sworn it was higher.....so at .004 increase it's 10.00 dollars per week...mheh..I really have to rethink it tho coz honestly I refused a lot of freight that was very high mt miles.....

 

So when do the O/O and L/O get a raise?

 

Whenever we choose or not choose to do so.....

 

There is no raise. It's a reduction in the loaded mileage rate, nothing more, nothing less.

Swift is playing a shell game by paying more for MT miles.

 

As a former central L/O I can tell you that central did the exact same thing with their pay scale about 2.5-3 years ago. I was on the regular OTR fleet and chose to stay with the old plan, having a dh% of around 5-7% this was a wise choice and there really was no issues but I joined their Coors dedicated fleet to run regional and my dh% went to over 40% the old rate killed me. I moved to the new pay scale with paid FSC on dh miles and saw an instant 200- 400 dollar a week raise in net. Yes the pay scale looks fishy as hell but it will and does work under the right circumstances. You have to run your personal numbers and keep an eye on your dh miles this will determine which route to take as far as the pay plan. I know swift hauls a lot of beer for miller coors but I'm not sure how they do it, central has a large contract with them and they run regional dedicated fleets out of the different breweries and run you out 500 - 700 miles and dh you straight back. That's really a pretty good gig all things considered. Also if you live near your home brewery you can be home quite a bit, I was home every weekend and usually a couple nights a week. Just a little FYI and my .02 worth

 

MOST Swift dedicated fleets pay you loaded miles regardless. If this were not the case then the new pay scale might actually make sense. Since I'm 05 division OTR it makes no sense for me at all.
I run A LOT of loads with little or no DH miles and plan to keep it that way.

 

The point that I'm trying to make is even though the FSC is smaller on the new plan, it's based on a 6.5 mpg avg if you can't get that loaded something is wrong. But where the new plan shines is if you run lots of dh as was said earlier you have much less wear on your equipment and your fuel mileage should be in the neighborhood of 9-10 mpg at least. Work the numbers it can be a good thing but you have got to run the dh. If swift is doing like most of the other carriers, they're trying to move all the long haul stuff to intermodal or splitting it up into smaller relay legs. If that is the case the new plan will pay off for you more so than the old. If you're able to keep running the long loads then the old plan will better suit you as long as your dh stays low. If they start doing away with the long loads they'll starve you out.

 

That's not an answer. There is no raise. I don't know what you're implying. This is like selling your soul to the devil, "I'll pay you for empty miles Jimmy...but we cut your FSC down over half! BWAHWAHAHHHA!"

 

I said it a few months ago, Swift should raise the pay up to $1.5 and pay zero nothing nada on mt miles. It would only take 88,000 miles to achieve $132,000 bucks and still be able to run 12% deadhead at 100,000 miles everyone would be happy.