Full job positions?

I am in the same boat as you and complety understand your situation! I finished my refresher time and they have done the same thing either go home without pay and wait for something to come up but then they get you on the technicallity that you were off over 30 days and therefore on voluntary quit at that point. I keep getting very rudly I might add that either I stay on the trainer truck and therefore create a cheap team for them since my trainer will get .31 cpm and since I driver 70 hrs at 400 give or take a week then I am making roughly 5.71 an hour they make a killing off having that cheap team on the road. Believe me the FM's have spaces on their board but they jsut arent putting them there till they have kept you in a trainer truck so long you are ready to quit or you may be lucky and get your own truck. Also I have had 2 trainers with the company the first we just couldnt get along the 2nd is a great person and I have nothing bad at all to say about him but the first trainer I noticed had gotten all his black students placed or the company had gotten them placed even though they had nothing available then too so it appears Werner is not only forcing you to quit or run cheap teams but they may have some racial bias in their too. I know I will get raped on that comment but I have seen it first hand and frankly it bothers me.

 

How was your training ? Did you team drive or did you get all the hours and your trainer trained from the jump seat.
I was with USX and did half my training then my trainer had home time. Came home and had a death in the family and later injured my hand which caused me to be off more then 30 days. I was in contact with saftey every other day and then faxed them the doctors note ok-ing me to return. They said because it has been over 30 days I would have to go through re-hire but they have a hiring freeze here in Michigan, so they couldn't use me. Ok not a problem there are other companies out there. The problem is no one would hire me because I had a voluntary quit. Well almost no one, Werner said they would take me and quite frankly I am going only for the training and to help asponge the "voluntary quit" on my work history so I can go with a better company. But if basically the same thing is going to happen with having to wait for a truck I dont think it's worth going to Indy on the 8th. Cause at their wages I am not going to continue as slave labor after my hours and upgrade are complete.

 

I finished my 275 hours back in October. I called my SDM and she said there were no positions available, that there wouldn't be for one - two weeks, and that my only options were to stay on the truck or take a leave of absence. I hadn't be home in almost two months, so I chose the leave. I spent a few weeks after that playing phone tag with my SDM and a variety of other Werner departments. Finally I passed 30 days and was removed from the system.

So here I am, a few days away from the new year, unemployed and hopefully starting a new job with Swift in a couple weeks. I know it's probably no improvement over Werner, but until I turn 22 and get some experience, I have almost no options.

Werner screwed me big time. I stayed on the truck with my trainer the entire time. Never got to see my $500 bonus. Never got my own truck. The SDM I had at the time doesn't even work for them anymore.

I hope Swift doesn't do the same thing. I've been talking with a recruiter who came to my school when I was getting my CDL. Hopefully I'll be able to do a refresher instead of another full training period.

If worse comes to worse, I'll have to take a local job working 16 hours a day delivering to mini marts in the area. I don't want to do that...

 

Is there some sort of additional training after the 300 hours in order to team drive? If not, why would additional team driving be at the training rate? Why wouldn't you simply team at the team rate until your truck is available?

Also, do you have any say as to at least which fleet you're going to join? For instance if you wanted flatbed?

 

there is no additional training to do after 300 hours. the company just does not have the spots on any fleets/trucks to put people in. this is due to the economic situation we have, they have parked LOTS of trucks at all the terminals, waiting to be put back in service. omaha has probably 2-300 new cascadias and centuries just sitting, in addition to the previously used road trucks waiting to be put back in service.

they will offer you 2 options. go home unpaid, or work as a student for longer. while it does suck to have to work under someone else, with the way things are right now, i can 100% recommend staying on the trainers truck until you get yours.

the $500 training bonus is payed via a reimbursement voucher that goes in your first trip envelope. don't do a solo load, don't get the training bonus.

 

Thanks for the recommendation.

I'm still unclear why you can't be paid the team rate after you're done training. If I stay on the truck, why is it still at the training rate and not the team rate? You're qualified and teaming at that point. Has nobody asked them this?

 

Werner doesnt consider you qualified until you go to the terminal, do the CBT's to complete testing out and turn in paper work and your training log. Only then will you be considered a "qualified" driver and if they do not allow you to get to the terminal or route you even remotely close to 1 then your not really able to do anything about it and thats how come your still stuck at trainee pay

 

Thank you. But, that sounds like a bunch of hooey if that's what they're going to say. If the choice is team cheaply or go home, I'll just drive myself to a terminal and test out. No trucks is one thing if they want to claim they're doing their best, but if they didn't allow you to solve your own problem within their structure then they will only have themselves to blame.

I don't intend to be a problem for them, but I do intend to try and make orange juice out of lemons where possible!

 

Tread carefully young padawan for the dark side clouds everything there. They will get you by a terminal if you choose to go home and even help with paying your way home but they wont let you test out without approval from your SDM and they wont let you even do that till they have something for you. If you bark too loudly then they will put the big dog to sleep and then there will be no job. I know its a bear but right now thats as it was put so affectionatly to me back when I went through it is "thats just the way it is"