ATA could set a new standard for safety with hourly pay

The ATA represents a lot of those megas, it’s not gonna cut off it’s own head!

 

ATA is strictly for themselves. If there is money for them, they have their hands out.

If someone wants to have them lobby Congress to enact say a 30.00 standing wage via Logged Hours each week and over time and half after 40 hours for your 70 hour week, ATA will NOT do it. That kind of legislation will be the instrument of a form of suicde among the trucking companies who are Members of ATA.

Remember the Trucking Industry is specifically excluded since 1934 by the US Dept of Labor from enjoying certain wage benefits as drivers. Companies will continue to offer people 0.32 a mile because the people take it and hire on. As they have for 40 years.

If Millions of Company drivers simply stayed home and refused to come out for anything less than say 1.00 a mile or 2000 dollars a week salary etc (Which comes out to 28.60 some per hour for a total of 70 hours per driver per week.) Then the companies will have to increase to much more generous pay packages. They will close the doors first.

Just like food places are firing human workers and putting in robots to avoid paying the new 15.00 a hour to the staff. And also in some cases, they close entirely. There is no point in helping to write checks that will put you out of business fairly fast.

 

I think your supposed to log on duty at the dock and I hear regular jobs can't clock you out for taking a piss

 

If engaged in the loading process, yes.

If released from work, then no you can log off duty or sleeper berth as appropriate.

But that is beside the point. The point is that unsupervised a lazy employee will find a way to bilk the system.

The only way to supervise is to do what I heard two UPS drivers talking about several years ago - at the end of the week the terminal manager talked to any driver who appeared to be wasting time. Take an extra 10 minutes to put together your set because the pintle hook wouldn't latch? Better have documented that. You were driving 48 mph on the interstate? Better have a good reason.

Hourly drivers are not any safer than milege rate drivers. What matters is the work set up and paradigm they work under.

As long as the HOS remain as they are, drivers will be encouraged to do less than intelligent things. I took my 30 minute break 23 minutes to early today. Leaving my customer I had a choice, drive 87 miles to a "mom and pop" lunar training base or drive 200 miles to my fuel stop. I had 4:00 on my 8 hour, and 4:23 on my 14.

I drove hard to make my fuel stop. I really would have liked to take a comfort stop along the way, but wherever I stopped, that was where I would be taking my ten. By pushing tonight it will get me another 150 miles tomorrow. Or if I were paid hourly, pushing 2.5 more hours tonight gets me 3 more hours of pay tomorrow.

It's the HOS, not pay structure that encourages stupidity.

 

In our plant if I was not running the Cat front end loader I would be asleep in one of the drivers chairs or have my nose buried in a FAT book. Staying awake is the worst time of workday between say noon and 3 PM. The contractors work the jobs delivered that morning and if they need a dallop, half a yard or 2 yards callback, they got it.

The Searcy Razorback plant, the batch man was not very good. He would on purpose load me up with fly ash to where I need to stick a thousand gallons of water into that drum. I only filled there like three times in a year. I made a point going else where for concrete with that mixer. The third time I simply stopped the drum while he poured the fly ash in. left the silo went to dump pound spun drum a few times the other way, ash goes bye bye. (*About a thouand pounds worth) and took what good concrete there was to the job who were none too happy.

 

As has been said before, the ATA and OOIDA represent the truck owners not the drivers. If drivers want to be represented then go knock on the teamsters door.

 

Ooida will take drivers memberships too.

 

OOIDA couldn't find it's own ### with both hands and a hunting dog.