They must ban "cpm" and "piecerate" pay

You’re about to get real unpopular with the girls around here. Old timers don’t like change and would rather die of starvation then see more regulation from the government.

 

Actually OP is right.

I have watched everything fritter away to inflation. And they are still paying people 0.34 a mile today if they can get away with it. Wife got 0.28 after FFE approved her from training pay of 350 gross a week to second seat in 2001. At the end of 2001 I earned about 0.48 as a top hand OTR. I didnt care what thousands were in the bank by the end of the first month. More the second and so on.

And here are we back to Piece work and sweatshop miles conditions down as low as 0.17 in three people trucks. Conditions themselves most people will never accept much less dynamic, moving and all weather and terrain day and night.

1934 had a rule with the then newly popular 8 hour workday. Trucking was excluded from certain methods of pay on purpose. However for decades economy and taxes etc relatively now SS did not exist until 1966 or nearly so as we understand it today. If you got smashed by a pallet and mained, your trucking days were over and you went home to exist with parents in a spare room upstairs. Maybe get healthy enough to be their caregiver later in life as exchange.

Today if you got hurt things are possible even with the right care to be retreaded and return to the industry. But why? I have essentially a lifetime of experience and all employers wont hire due to newbie like no records and no experiene on paper last 10 years. That's BS. I consider myself lucky to have two that will.

At some point we might as well go to robot trucks. Totally eliminate human BS, costs, losses, flip flops, urine etc OTR. Why bother. Eliminate that payroll too. Cut down on the losses to the trucks until you realize chasing after bricked trucks deep in a wyoming winter is a loss event all it's own. Eliminate the benefits and pension costs too. Truck bricks, junk it, purchase another bring it to your specs at 55 mph go clog up the interstates until more people are killed in weather events herded up around you.

As far as popularity, thats not what I am here for. If I am not stumbling between coffeepot and mug on the floor I am actually trying to help some that can be helped and #### the rest who wont. =)

 

Only way things will change is if all or a large majority truck drivers protest but sadly many drivers would rather cry about rates and continue to take that 1.50/mile load. Many O/O actually can’t protest because they have no emergency or offtime funds because they’ve been on the low rates for so long. And many company guys fear getting fired or getting replaced with a window fogger that’ll take less pay than him. I do agree with OP it’s been long enough.

 

Pay wont change much until drivers stop taking low paying jobs.
Same goes for "cheap freight".
There will always be a Volvo ready to pull it with a driver that can't pass a piss test willing to drive it.

 

If the load doesn't pay or meet your requirements...don't haul it. If the job doesn't pay enough or the way that you want...don't apply. Free markets require that people make their own choices, not the government.

Supply and demand will decide who wins and loses.

 

If everyone is will to pay more for the stuff they buy in stores, we can raise the the pay to anything. That's the problem, people seem to like paying as little as possible for stuff.

Maybe drivers are not worth $100,000 today when someone can do the same job for less money.

I have a guarantee minimum pay every week. If I run more miles then the minimum guarantee. I get paid more, even my company can't keep drivers. Because they don't want to do the work. Driver say it's not worth the money for time it takes or they don't like they way they run the truck. They also pay Detention pay. They pay you to sit at truck stop for 34 hours if you don't get home for the weekend (34 hours).

 

I mean, where are they going that's so much better than that? I could understand if the minimum pay was like $500 a week, but the lowest I've seen is $850 on a dedicated short haul gig.

 

Nice plan, but what about owner operators?

 

You can always choose to work where you are paid salary. Nothing in the laws or regulations require companies to pay CPM. You making choices to make you happy is a lot less expensive, more effective, and doesn't need a lot of out of touch govt employees ignoring their customers all day.