Central Transport International - Warren, Mi.

I know exactly what you are talking about CTI (JWA). I worked there for one and a half years. I received nothing but bull from this company. I worked out of Romulus, Mi. and they are about as disorganized and do not know nothing about loading A trailer or care about A driver as any company can come close to. All they care about is making money and they do not care if they run you down in the process. They recently ordered me and the other drivers to get A double endorsement and told us if we do not obey and pull doubles they will fire us. We had no exp. at all with doubles and they did not offer to give us any and also did not oiffer any more pay. I did my Indy runs with doubles and finally decided to go to John Cairico to get more pay and as usuale he said he will see what he can do witch was nothing. This company called in more than 3000 dock employees between Indy, Romulus, Hammond and Cleveland and told all of them there services with central is no longer needed and they fired every one of them within two to three weeks time. They fired a lot of RLC (Regional Load Coordinators) and dock managers to. Mark in Romulus did hard work for this company as A RLC, he voluntered all his weekends for free and numerous other days for them and they fired him about A month ago.(UNBELEIVABLE) Leaving this company really was the best thing I ever did. All the post about freight loading and over hours work and waiting in Indy 4-5 hours in A daycab truck is absolutely true. I became A member tonight just to responde to this and hopefuuly save someones life from going into this company. I recently took up employeement with A respectfully committed company in Canton, Mi. All the stress from central is gone now and I have A much better future with this new comp. Hope you can find A good place to work also and GOD BLESS for best efforts.

 

This company no longer has Charlotte exp. or JWA with them. They fired lots of dock personnel, RLC., Managers and others. The meaning behind all that I don't know. I do know that if you are considering this company do not say you were never warned after reading these posts. You will guaranteed get the raw end of the deal. They are lying commie ######## that deserve to be taken down out of existence. Death to Maddy M. or however you pronounce his name. Call it slander, or call it vulgar, just stay far away as possible.

 

these were also [crappy] companies as far as benifits but they were Union busting co's if the empolyees they now have would stick togather? who knows it might be a good place to work? I will say when I started for JWA @ $15.00 hr I was offered another job @$17.00 which JWA matched ( all decisions are made by CTI regional mgr ) several months go by and while i'm not some kind of supertrucker ( just do my job ) I was delivering & picking up on average of 5 stops per week more than the other 4 p&d drivers combined out of our terminal ( we all ran100+mile oneway peddles ) well after proving my point to management I didn't have to wait 2 weeks for new pay raise it came on the next check $18.50 hr this was more than the 3 guys ahead of me two of then had been there 6 years & 12 years respectfully ( contractors) but by now we are all cti emp's I was the only one who could work their hand held scanner's (when they worked )the only one who could load a outbound trailer now dont get me wrong the guys I worked with were good guys but when your check is shorted week after week and it takes weeks to sort it out I guess good guys just don't give a crap and the mexican contractors that would turn their placards over from ? to drive safe at the meet and turn points is another story. Any newhire or driver that needs a job should stay away from this company CTI as you have been warned as to the practices of this empolyee unfriendly company

 

not to start an argument, but my time with central has not been all that bad. I started with them 3 yrs ago driving for a contractor, running city p&d. When they phased out the contractors, I was put on as a JWA emp.,I was given the same wage and benefits as if I was a JWA emp. all along. In other words I did not go to the bottom of the totem pole. About a year later, I was changed from JWA to Central employee. You get two weeks paid vacation after two years service. Not 6 years. Eventually you get three weeks but I'm not sure after how long. Pay rates are based on the area you are in. The higher demand for GOOD drivers in a particular area means a higher wage. We got a 2$ per hour raise across the board in Evansville IN because it was hard to get anyone to apply, let alone stay. Here you start at $17/hr and by the end of the first year you are up to $18.50 The scanners took a while to get straight, but now things work fine. Patience. I am the trainer at our terminal and I have seen a few drivers come from OTR wanting to be home every day. Not everyone is cut out for p&d. I am not cut out for OTR! Some guys don't want to use a pallet jack or handle cartons for a customer because they are a truck driver not a lumper, My response to them is go ahead and drive OTR and I'll go home tonight and be with my wife. I grossed 55K in 07 and yeah I put in some 14 hr days. I put in alot of 9-10 hr days too. Most LTL companies have more employees than they use everyday, meaning you don't see steady work until you have put in several years of casual work. Central does not have a large pool of people, so when it gets a little busier than normal, you have to step up and put in some extra hours. But when things slow down, you don't get laid off. Central tractors have air ride, am/fm radios, a/c, power steering, air ride seats. Go look at conway, holland, roadway, yellow,etc Watch the drivers sweat it out cranking on the wheel with their portable radio box in the pass. seat. Oh yeah I drive the same truck and trailer every day. We aren't perfect, but if you look, the same companies listed on the bad side of this forum are the same ones on the good side. I'm 44 now and I hope I will be here until I retire. Thanks for reading.

 

Kennedy, glad to hear that your experience there has worked out that well. Obviously some people are happy there otherwise they'd have no employees! And I have no doubt that every terminal is different, and some are really good to work for. Good luck!

 

I was a driver leased on to Central Transport many years ago. Same game that they play now ..... just different company names. And back then, I was a Teamsters driver.

I drove a relatively new Ford 9000 series short-nose daycab. If you got hooked up with the right dispatcher(s), you could run as long as you wanted. Weekends were especially busy if you wanted to work.

When I was shorted on my miles, the owner of my company would promise to look into it. After all, she got a cut of what her drivers were paid, so it was to her advantage to get us paid.

OTR drivers were paid by the mile. As time when on, the miles between cities were 'recalculated' and of course, that meant that the routes were magically shorter. When I explained that I passed 73 Interstate mile markers on my route from the home terminal to Romulus, let alone the two miles before and one mile after the interstate, and yet their new mileage chart showed the run paid 71 miles, it was then that I realized they could save about 6% on driver's wages by recalculating the mileage charts. Why raise your freight rates when you can do better by lowering your wage cost?

Although hourly rates applied after a certain amount of delay time, in my 18 months there, I never received pay for any delay time.

In my professional opinion, Central Transport was a good place to start my driving career. I learned a lot of good things, and I saw and endured a lot of bad things there. Once you leave CT, there is nowhere to go but up, for you start at the bottom there.

More tales abound if you're at all interested.

 

I worked for Central in the mid 80's, when they were still Teamsters. The wage was good, the equipment was krap. We were consolidating and hauling the freight in and out of AM General, in South Bend, and Mishawaka, Indiana. 12 hrs a day, 5 days a week.
Back then, they had O/O's doing the linehauls. They also had several companies, that used O/O's. One was Central Transport, which paid it's O/O's .68 a mile back then, and US Trucking, which paid it's O/O's .51, for doing the same job. I'd heard you started with US, and if they liked you, ya got a Central contract.

My brother works there now, and HATES it! He has a linehaul from Mishawaka, IN, to wherever they send him. Sometimes it's Indy, or Lansing, but lately it's been Cleveland. He's looking for better....

 

Lonesome - good luck to your bro- I feel for him! When I was running out of Romulus, I would end up in Kokomo at least once a week. It wasn't bad when it was just Kokomo and back, but a few times it was Kokomo to Indy to Ft wayne to Romulus- now that just flat out SUCKED!

And Kent, please keep the stories coming!

 

I run out of Flint, MI to mostly Lansing and Romulus everynight. While not perfect, i will say this. The hours are there and the checks keep cashing. This isn't the first LTL company I've worked for and I don't always understand their methods, but there is work and lots of it. In this day and age, at least in Flint, who else can say that? Sure beats going over the road to try and get a nice paycheck.