Dealer's Pick: El Paso, TX Local Driving Jobs

Greetings, brother truckers-

Been looking at El Paso, TX local driving gigs over the last few months and I must say- it is horrendous.

Perhaps its all the Mexican federal licenses being accepted by employers.

Maybe its the slave-owner mentality that features so prominently among southern/west Texas employers [many of whom are 1st/2nd generation Mexican immigrants themselves].

One thing is for sure- local driving in El Paso, TX pays a pittance. Some local gigs are offering as low as $8 per hour for CDL A local driving.

The other common theme is working 6 days a week. I actually had an employer refuse to tell me how much the pay was over the phone. The one company I found that paid a whopping $13/hr wants the driver to accept responsibility for any accidents and to run regional at, you guessed it, a below market per mile rate.

Then one must consider the absolute buckets that are pieced together with rubber bands and gum to stay on the road. There's a broken down truck at every other bend in I-10 going through El Paso. Every other rush hour there's a truck broke down in the middle lane. Yet, the employers have the gall to say when asked about the average number of drops in a day: "Depends on how fast you move". More like, "depends on whether the truck is operational, when crappy shippers/receivers in El Paso decide to offload/load, and whether there's another truck on fire blocking I-10 through the middle of town."

Mind you, none of these companies mention anything about "hazard pay" for simply navigating the gauntlet that is El Paso city driving including all the Chihuahua plates on the road.

Looking at other local driving markets nearby- Tucson, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Dallas, San Antonio, etc, there is a huge difference in pay, schedule and equipment.

I'm seriously considering going to Tucson to drive local during the week for $15-17/hr and renting an apartment there instead of bothering with the local driving scene in El Paso. I can be home on weekends and still make more money.

 

Sorry, sorry. Full disclosure- that company "LGA Express", offers an additional $8 per drop, but no additional pay for moving empties.

To me those additional $8 just sounded like insult to injury.

I had a few choice words for that "recruiter" before letting him listen to the dial tone.

 

Why blame it on supply? If anyone had a choice between making $20/day in Juarez and $100/day in El Paso, is there really a question?

I blame the employers who know full-well that licensing requirements in Mexico for a CDL are way lower than in the US. I also blame regulators for not having the foresight to mandate compliance with US CDL licensing within a certain amount of time of being granted residency or a visa.

Lord knows, if I decide to move from El Paso to another state in the union, the law says that I only have XX days to change even a regular license. Yet, someone coming from out of the country gets to indefinitely use their CDL that cost them as little as an oil change?

By "blame" I mean, the low wages, long hours and unsafe conditions. I've found this to be the same in several industries in El Paso, from construction to housekeeping, child care, landscaping and cleaning services. There is hardly a blue-collar industry in El Paso whose wages and work environment aren't artificially suppressed due to proximity to Mexico.

Local chamber's of commerce and politicians sing the praises of proximity to Mexico and I suspect it is only because of how much more of a profit margin there is for employers being able to undercut pay and provide such horrible work conditions. After all, it is the employers in El Paso that fund political campaigns and pay the most taxes.