Swift Transportation Company, Inc. - Phoenix, Az.

No Sir. I've never seen so much as a pebble in one of their parking lots.

Is it that obvious?

Who's attacking you? You step into these forums, call people ignorant, and defend the indefensible. I equal that to using this place as a toilet.

Are they hell bent on what they do? I really cannot say, but that company has racked up the most heinous complaints of all the trucking companies out there, and has screwed with more lives of people simply seeking to feed their families, and given this industry such a black eye on several fronts.

Not only is the public afraid of their trucks and their drivers, so too are the knowledgeable truckers that share the roads with them. The safety record of that company stinks. Because they are unable to attract an experienced workforce, they slink, scrape, and scour the heavens and the earth, to fill those trucks with warm bodies, using them and abusing people much like slavemasters did 140 years ago.

When Swift announced that they had "partnered" with many of the Government unemployment offices to train displaced workers, they hit a new low. It was a new source of completely unaware people, not privy to the known abuses that the company has attained over the past few years.

They are a spider, that spins a web, then waits for the flies to land, and they pounce on them, chewing them up and spitting out the carcasses. Flys that fight for their lives and do not submit to their demise, are villified, blackballed, and hounded. What for? For simply recognizing the fact that they have made a horrible mistake.

From the contracts that are signed for training tuition, to the situations that newbies find themselves placed into, to their Lease/Purchase Program that milks a driver dry, leaving him or her with little to actually call compensation, they are running sweatshops on wheels, and dangerous ones at that.

Shall I continue? I could write all day about that company.

If you want some stipulation that some people are not cut out for the job, and shouldn't be in a truck, you have it. But let me ask you a few questions.

If that in any way is contributing to some of the issues that Swift finds themself in, who's fault is that?

Who has the power to approve and deny employment, and should be screening people for compatibility?

Who should be training these people properly, rather than running them through the equivilent of a boot camp for a few weeks, then shoves a truck under their hind ends, and expects people with no experience and minimal training to perform miracles?

Like a metaphor that I have used to describe another failure of a company to retain a consistent workforce, Swift places a band-aid on the wounds they suffer, rather than to prevent them in the first place.

Imagine a water dam, filled with billions and billions of gallons of water. The dam starts to erode. Rather than to use cement to patch the leaks, the fill them with peanut butter. Yeah, it holds for a little while, but after time, the patches fail, and because other leaks are occuring along with those that were patched, you have people running all over the place, with peanut butter jars in their hands, along with putty knives, patching all over the place. The flow becomes too much. The water is overcoming their ability and common sense that could be applied to the problem, to hold it back.

Swifts "leaks" are to the tune of 17,000+ patches that fail each year to take hold, and this doesn't even include those that come into orientation or training class, that are cut in that process. We could be taking about the screening of people that number into the 40,000's, or even more, who are used like peanut butter to plug the leaks in Swifts dam.

This is only one aspect of their big problems. But the point is, all of these peanut butter plugs, amount to something that Swift in essense is not recognizing. They are PEOPLE. They came there looking for a decent job, and one that pays enough to sustain themselves and their families.

Swift has dashed the hopes and dreams of more people, aka newbies, than any other company out there, and they do it with no shame. The goal is to get their signature on that tuition agreement and from there, they couldn't care less. Everything changes from that point on. They have just become an economic slave to Swift, if they stay that is. If not, then they use their power, and a few electronic tricks to prevent them from moving on with their lives, that is, if they still pursue the dream and goal of driving a truck.

I DO look at both sides of a story before I size things up. I may not have said it thus far, but for sure, Swift has some good drivers, and they may have decent jobs to offer. What bothers me the most about that company is their lack of concern for the inexperienced that find their way in the clutches of that company.

For as much as you sit there and blame drivers for their issues and complaints, and do it from a limited point of view, the job as a truck driver is hard enough, when conditions are cited that any driver would encounter, that are completely out of the control of the company they work for.

You may be exactly what you claim to be. You may be a dedicated, polite, and helpful person, who does his level best on your shift to assist drivers at night. But what they have encountered during the day, with the people who are charged with their oversight, may be a horse of a different color. You just happen to see their resultant anger, frustration, and defiance. It builds over time.

The biggest problem that all large companies face today, is the fact that to those with those computers in front of their face, often forget that the numbers of those trucks represent actual people, all with lives outside of that truck, and they deserve to be recognized as such.

The turnover rates that Swift experiences is not born from nothing. As I stated earlier, people don't quit advantageous jobs, with advantageous working conditions, and with advantageous compensation. They quit those that lack those things.

Just as you tend to look at things from your perspective, so do I. But my perspective includes a little more views than yours does. I have not only driven a truck for the past twenty nine years, I have had investment and/or outright owned, two trucking companies, and augmented my driving experience with sitting behinds a few desks as well. Granted, they were not companies that would have ever rivaled the ranks of Swift, but I know what it takes to retain a workforce of drivers, and I did it well.

I now work for a company that has a turnover rate of less than 20%. About half of that is due to people that retire. So, no job is ever perfect, and not everyone is suited for even the best of jobs. There's no way around that.

But, as someone so eloquently put it yesterday, you can put a turd in a box, wrap it with shiny paper, and top it off with a bow, and what's still in the box? A turd.

Let me conclude with one more thought. For some reason, this site and so many others out there, have the traffic to support the writings and musings of so many discontented people who have worked for trucking companies, in the capacity as drivers. This one is growing by the minute.

I have failed to run across sites anywhere across the web, created by managerial staffs of trucking companies, that are born from years of involvement with ignorant, lazy, uncomprehending, defiant, non-policy following truck drivers.

So who's really fooling who here?

 

Hhhmm....

If Swift is not paying the industry standard for fuel surcharges, I find that to be a VERY VALID reason for seeking a means to make a living elsewhere.

I can't imagine why you wouldn't.

 

Now understand something. I have no sympathy whatsoever if an lessor charges into this kind of situation, and signs a lease that does not clearly outline such an important issue like how fuel surcharges are calculated and paid. They are doing it with their eyes wide open.

It takes two minutes to deduce what kind of fuel surcharge one should be getting for any given week.

At this weeks average of 2.967 a gallon, the applicable fuel surcharge rate should be around .35 cents per mile. If it's any LOWER than this, someone is being ripped off.

A simple way to calculate a ballpark figure of an expected fuel surcharge is to just subtract the baseline cost ($1.10 - $1.20 per gallon depending on contract) from the national average price, then divide it by 5. Every five sent rise in the retail price of fuel dictates a one cent rise in the fuel surcharge rate. The reverse process is the same, in that with each five cent decline in retail prices at the pump, it dictates a one cent reduction in the fuel surcharge rates.

Thus @ a threshhold of $1.20 a gallon baseline price and the difference in price falling between;

- $1.25 per gallon fuel = $0.01 CPM surcharge
- $1.30 per gallon fuel = $0.02 CPM surcharge
- $1.35 per gallon fuel = $0.03 CPM surcharge
- $1.40 per gallon fuel = $0.04 CPM surcharge
- $1.45 per gallon fuel = $0.05 CPM surcharge
- $1.50 per gallon fuel = $0.06 CPM surcharge
- $1.55 per gallon fuel = $0.07 CPM surcharge
- $1.60 per gallon fuel = $0.08 CPM surcharge
- $1.65 per gallon fuel = $0.09 CPM surcharge
- $1.70 per gallon fuel = $0.10 CPM surcharge
- $1.75 per gallon fuel = $0.11 CPM surcharge
- $1.80 per gallon fuel = $0.12 CPM surcharge
- $1.85 per gallon fuel = $0.13 CPM surcharge
- $1.90 per gallon fuel = $0.14 CPM surcharge
- $1.95 per gallon fuel = $0.15 CPM surcharge
- $2.00 per gallon fuel = $0.16 CPM surcharge
- $2.05 per gallon fuel = $0.16 CPM surcharge
- $2.10 per gallon fuel = $0.18 CPM surcharge
- $2.15 per gallon fuel = $0.19 CPM surcharge
- $2.20 per gallon fuel = $0.20 CPM surcharge
- $2.25 per gallon fuel = $0.21 CPM surcharge
- $2.30 per gallon fuel = $0.22 CPM surcharge
- $2.35 per gallon fuel = $0.23 CPM surcharge
- $2.40 per gallon fuel = $0.24 CPM surcharge
- $2.45 per gallon fuel = $0.25 CPM surcharge
- $2.50 per gallon fuel = $0.26 CPM surcharge
- $2.55 per gallon fuel = $0.27 CPM surcharge
- $2.60 per gallon fuel = $0.28 CPM surcharge
- $2.65 per gallon fuel = $0.29 CPM surcharge
- $2.70 per gallon fuel = $0.30 CPM surcharge
- $2.75 per gallon fuel = $0.31 CPM surcharge
- $2.80 per gallon fuel = $0.32 CPM surcharge
- $2.85 per gallon fuel = $0.33 CPM surcharge
- $2.90 per gallon fuel = $0.34 CPM surcharge
- $2.95 per gallon fuel = $0.35 CPM surcharge
- $3.00 per gallon fuel = $0.36 CPM surcharge
- $3.05 per gallon fuel = $0.37 CPM surcharge
- $3.10 per gallon fuel = $0.38 CPM surcharge

and so on...

The table can be easily amended if the baseline price is set at $1.10 a gallon. Simply add two cents to every right hand figure, and the starting increase in price that would trigger the first one cent surcharge rate, would be $1.15 a gallon, thus making this weeks applicable fuel surcharge rate .37 a mile.