Driver wages

I learned from the 5 years that I drove the CEO around what trucking companies thought about drivers. In short, from the time they hire you, they start a file on you to fire you, pure and simple.

 

[QUOTE="Hang - Man";3812850]Derailed your a good one to ask, since i see you have 20 years in trucking, are you a company driver and have you seen your paychecks going up through the years ? Staying stagnant, or are you operating at a lesser pay because of inflation.
I guess i would have to ask if you are an OTR driver also ?[/QUOTE]

They have gone up throughout the years as a company driver, but I would say it still isn't proportionate to where it should be considering the cost of everything else today. The rates in general today are only a little more than what I was getting in the 90s as an owner operator though.

 

I'm from the Chicagoland area as well so I'm sure I have you figured out already....

Your great company pays on a 10-99, offers no health insurance or benefits? And I'm sure 99% of the freight you haul is from brokers so the drivers 14 hour clock generally turns into an 18 or 20 hour clock per day while he waits for you to find him another load.... And ya when you blow a tire out drive to the nearest TA 100 miles away cause you don't want pay the road service fee right? Sound like your company Bogi?

There's about 100 to 200 add's on Craigslist like yours in Chicago at any given day....

 

You're just quoting base salary. Most executives receive a large portion of their compensation by way of company stock. It's an incentive based pay system.

Besides, you must show gains in the stock to make public shareholders happy and keep that new capital coming in. Labor costs are a direct hindrance. This is what's keeping wages down. If you want to receive your withheld wages, you must buy company stock. That's where most of it went. The rest went to executive pay and business reinvestment(equipment, real estate, stock repurchasing).

According to Reagan's theory, as the pie got larger, everybody's proportionate piece would get bigger as well. That theory has failed in most places. The problem is wage earners are at the bottom of the pole, and executive greed and attitudes about what "those people" deserve has distorted Reagan's idea.

Not to disparage all executives. There are a few, usually private owned corporations, that don't answer to Wall Street. They still hold labor in high regard and pay annual bonuses commensurate to their own bonus. My friend's dad flies a business jet for a Houston based exec. His pilot salary is $70000/yr, however, his annual bonus is usually $30k-$50k a year. His largest bonus, after a record year for the company, was $100000! His bonuses are a proportionate mirror to the CEOs bonuses, based off base salary. This is in the true spirit of Reagan's idea for America. Unfortunately, for most of us, the opposite has and is continuing to occur.

 

This idea that paying drivers more will directly make end product retail costs an equivalent amount higher is a myth.

There are many others links is a huge supply chain, where the driver is just one small link. I think drivers have been squeezed much more than other players in the chain. The insanely high turnover rates are testimony. It's time to find efficiencies elsewhere in the chain. Get driver turnover on par with turnover in the rest of the supply chain. You'll see driver wages double and end product costs stay level.

 

The company I work for, only has two trucks, but they are both in excellent condition. I receive full benefits, including dental and life. I get 3000 miles a week and I am paid either a percentage or 58 cpm which ever is the higher. I get three weeks paid vacation as well as a matching 401K account. There is never any forced dispatch as I am allowed to find my own freight if something doesn't please me. When my truck is in for repairs, the company flies me home. I am paid $200 per day if I am detained or my truck is in the shop.

Now the question is, would anyone out there take my job but do it for something like 57 cpm. If so, you know why drivers pay has failed to keep up.

 

There should be a uniform to paying driver salaries just like minimum wage if u start out at bottom u automatically no your getting paid 7.75 and move up from there. When I left cr England I was paid .13 mi, swift paid me .22, then I went to star @ .33 then company raise to .39 but never really got the full .39 because they found ways to take money away, Arnold transport .35 then company I am with now pay .33 west of Ms river nomatter how many years then my pay is .35 anything east of Ms river then they get u because majority of freight is west of Ms river

 

Wow.
5 jobs in 2 years.

You can't keep going like that if you want to keep working.

 

You know what pisses me off? The ignorant morons with no teeth I got to meet when I was OTR. Knowitall idiots that are the main reason why wages and conditions are the way they are right now. This companies think we are nothing but uncultured swine, people that get excited if you give them a bagel and forget that they are in a company meeting without getting paid. I think this is the only industry where companies expect you to show up to a meeting and not pay you a dime for your time. Only industry where they expect you to be responsible and liable without compensation.

They sure love what they got going on, they only pay you when you are making them money. Therefore they could care less if YOU make money. Plus with the government giving them an incentive to keep hiring newbs and watching them leave after 2 months, it's a win-win situation for them. They get a government check AND still charge you for your CDL school, oh, added to the fact you team-trained for them at minimum wage. Jesus Christ, what a deal this people got going on. This has to stop. Otherwise the rest of the industry is going to become a huge CDL mill where people only do it for a few months and leave.

So far the LTL industry hasn't fallen into this, but it wouldn't take long before they realize they can have part time dockworkers and steering wheel holders for half our wages... and a claims department as huge as Central Transport's LOL. You get what you pay for.