Driver pay.....

And if the driver did less than 3000 miles for 48 weeks of the year and over 3000 for 2 weeks of the year he would be on this forum raging about his bottom feeder employer that only paid him for 3000 miles in a week that he did 3500 miles and how he shouldn't have to drive 500 miles for free yada yada yada, blah blah blah. We see it here ALL the time.

 

A friend of mine works for company that guarantees him $850 a week and pays him more if he does more. I think that's fair. They also let him take the truck home if he's not too far.

 

We started out paying drivers $850 per week minimum ($.35 x 2500 miles) with miles over the base paid as well. We thought it should be the dispatcher's responsibility to keep the trucks rolling and the drivers shouldn't suffer if the dispatcher didn't.

We wound up with drivers that would time their loads so that they frequently had 3 day weekends and weren't available for all the miles. One guy averaged 1,600 miles a week and we had freight available.

After seeing how we were getting taken advantage of, we dropped the guaranteed base to 1,500 miles a week at $.35 cpm and paid $.40 cpm for all miles above that. No we have guys that want to run, ask for the miles and average 2,500 miles or more a week.

The guaranteed base at $850 almost put us under because we were so over paying for labor. This is not a high margin business so as long as some drivers take advantage of employers that try to look out for them, employers won't be motivated to do so.

 

I don't think you're going to find many O/O's willing to run their truck for somebody else on salary...too many variable costs involved for the O/O, fuel being the big one. They may pay themselves a salary (like I do)....but the work the truck does is certainly not going to be on salary.

 

Now that I'm an owner-op, I get the joy of 'paying myself' like that. It's amazing how consistent my paychecks are

 

It was the easiest way to make sure I got paid every week....just set up a weekly transfer from one account to the other. That and there's no need to keep records justifying what you pay yourself because it is not a variable amount. With per-mile or percentage pay, you'd have to keep track of how many miles you drove or what the truck grossed to document that you were paying yourself appropriately in order to maintain the separation between the business and your personal finances.

I like easy....and I HATE paperwork.

 

then the problem is the hiring of someone who is arguably irresponsible in the first place. "if" a responsibile/qualified/moral individual is hired,then salary system should work fine. in my opinion, the current pay system used by the BFI co's. is a reinforcing downward spiral.

 

All of a drivers pay should be hourly....start to finish....why should I have to subsidize that box of Tide detergent that someone just bought.

 

If your talking about otr should be paid hourly, that's a horrible idea for someone who gets paid percentage

Ethan