Covenant Dispatching - A Comedy of Errors

I took up the challenge:

To: kate[at]nesri[dot]org


Hello Kate,

I was reading with interest the information on your website about the farm workers and the work your organization has been doing in their behalf.

I was wondering if the working conditions for truckers who work for certain companies (namely Swift and Covenant – two of the top-ten national carriers) might also fall under your organization’s purview. You see, these two companies have a “no idle” policy in place that forbids their drivers from idling their trucks to keep warm in the winter or cool in the summer. If a driver disregards the policy, they are charged a certain amount of money that is then withheld from their paycheck as punishment. Granted, there are many jobs where workers are subjected to the harsh extremes of weather, however, I believe that the men and women who drive a commercial truck should be afforded the benefit of decent sleeping conditions for safety reasons. As an example, my husband works for one of the above mentioned companies and currently he is in Texas. This man is expected to get restful sleep during the day, inside a metal truck, with nothing but open windows to keep him cool in 95 degree heat. When given a job assignment, he is expected to be well rested and ready to safely drive this 60,000-lb. vehicle from point A to point B.

If a human leaves an animal in a car during the day, that person can be charged with cruelty to animals. Doing the same thing to a child is child abuse which is also punishable by law. Apparently the same right does not apply to truck drivers who work for Swift or Covenant.

Most trucking companies either allow their drivers to idle or they supply their trucks with APU’s (auxiliary power units), or they pay for a hotel room. Some of Covenant’s trucks have APU’s but most do not. However, their no-idle policy applies to all drivers whether they have an APU installed or not.

The DOT has regulations limiting the amount of hours a truck driver can be on duty for safety reasons. They are required to take a 10-hour rest break in between 14-hour work days. But nowhere does the DOT say that a driver’s rest must be in conditions that allows that driver to get actual sleep. What you end up with is a driver who is exhausted from lack of sleep due to a lack of air conditioning or heat. What happens while a driver is at rest, and therefore not on duty, does not come under their jurisdiction.

Not only does this seem to me to be a blatant violation of a driver’s right to be afforded decent housing from an employer (because, after all, the truck is considered to be a driver’s “home” and it is supplied by the company) but it is an insult to drivers’ morale and a form of ultimate cruelty knowing they have the capability to stay cool (or warm) but are not allowed to do so.

Do you think this is something your organization can look into and if not, can you point me in the right direction for someone who is in a position to help these drivers who suffer from such cruel policies?

Thank-you.

 

Wednesday August 5th. QC beeps at 0908 with XXXX760. Pick-up in Dallas, TX at 0800 on the 5th (an hour ago) and deliver to Port Allen, LA at 0230 on the 6th. 411 loaded miles.

Redcoat delivered to Clebourne, TX last night and was legal at 0600 this morning. Another on-time delivery.

Redcoat heard from Maverick today. We have to get some notarized letters to them for RC's time that he was unemployed/retired (same stuff we had to do for Covenant last year). I had scanned copies on my laptop and fired those off right away. Will keep you updated on how it goes.

 

This is the response I got back from Kate:

Thanks for your email and I'm sorry to hear about this situation.
While we do not have the capacity to address this ourselves, I have asked around about where I can refer you, and I will get back to you as soon as I get a good lead.
More soon,
Kate

So maybe she will be able to point me in the right direction.

 

Yes, he's English. He was born and raised in northern England in a town called Halifax which is very near Manchester. Getting his CDL was the easy part. Getting his driver's license was the hard part. I'm sure there are probably other ways to get it done but we did it the legal way.

First we had to get married (something I had not really planned on but it had to be done for him to be able to stay in this country). Then he applied for his green card. That took lots of $$$ and several months to gin through our governmental red tape. We applied in January '08 and by April '08 he had his temporary work permit and travel papers that would allow him to work and to leave and re-enter the US. The next step was to get a social security number so that took a couple weeks. Once we had that, he went down and took his driving test for his US license. That was in June '08. Then in July '08 he went to Roadmaster school and got his CDL. Then in November '08 he got his green card in the mail.

Not sure if that helps you but that's the route we took. The major obstacle we ran into was him trying to get a job after CDL school. NOBODY would hire him because he didn't have a 3-year work history in the US and he didn't have his US license for at least a year. That is why he ended up with Covenant. They were the ONLY ones who would hire him.