History of why Truckers are paid by the Mile instead hourly?

The issue is, you cannot stuff this entire industry into this perfect little box so many here try to do. These mega carriers, they would be better served paying a salary in more than a few cases. The little guys, percentage or per mile would fly quite well DEPENDING on the rates. So many variables out here, to many in fact. What works for one guy will never work for another. This one size fits all mentality is what is killing this industry. And when I say killing, trucking used to be an honorable high paying profession, not so anymore. Blame deregulation, or the government... I lean towards the government, unfettered immigration and the EPA has killed any real free market competition out here.

Just my .02 in one paragraph. Not everything I think by a long shot.

 

O.K. I see the author of the linked article got it all wrong!

CPM or piece work pay has nothing to do with refrigerated transport. Just because two things are of issue at the same time in history does not mean there is the slightest connections. Classic Post-hoc Fallacy Post hoc ergo propter hoc - Wikipedia. Piece work pay existed before the invention of refrigeration and continued long after. The two things have no connection what-so-ever.

And it wasn't the "drivers" ever "liked" CPM. It was just how they were paid. It is not a matter of "liking." It is not a matter of getting paid more as at the time their was no option of another pay system. Piece work pay, including CPM, is a feature of the "sweatshop era" of the time. Truck driver wages and CPM were just a product of the era.

The sweatshop era ended in the US with the minimum wage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 The Law That Changed the American Workplace If you had to pay an hourly minimum, there is no sense in calculating all the rigamarole of piece work.

Truck drivers were exempted from the FLSA since they were already regulated under the 1935 Motor Carrier Act. Covering truck drivers under FLSA was thought to intrude on the relm of the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission).

 

And another thing. Drivers are CONSTANTLY complaining about how they don't like to be micro-managed by dispatch, even a little bit. Well, I can assure you micro-management of the driver and their time management is going to be off the charts in the clastic nationwide OTR scenario and paid hourly, especially on eLogs. You have time to run and HOS rules say you can be running? You better be running, no matter if you like it or not.

Be careful what you wish for.

The fact there is (or has been) little ability for management to supervise, monitor, an "hand-hold" a truck driver because they are far removed from any type of physical oversight is a big part of why hourly pay made no sense. It's just common knowledge many will "skate" if not under direct and constant supervision. So pay them CPM and a lot of those issues go away.

 

I worked on the clock rather than CPM for 18 years. If you think you are micromanaged, wait until every minute at work costs your boss money.

The grass is always greener...

 

Somebody's got to pay for the carnage.

 

Day rate . 200 a day sounds about right

 

How the driver is paid is not the purview of the shipper. They bid and negotiate for a service not on the method of paying a driver.

Strange things with these assumptions, they are usually wrong. Exactly what happens in the real world is drivers that get paid by the hour are the least micromanaged. All the mega-crap trucking companies pay CPM and are the first with nanny cams, driver cams, Qualcoms, truck tracking, critical event recorders, ELDs, and lots of unpaid safety training. Talk to a Teamster about nanny cams, see how well that goes.

Micromanagement is the affect of poor management. Provide ineffective management devoid of the knowledge of the job, with the power to micromanage and they will. Hourly pay, requires management to effectively know their business to survive. There is no idle time to micromanage drivers when management resources are consumed managing customers and workers efficiently. CPM allows inefficient management to dump the job of margining customers, time, and resources on the driver.

The inefficiencies of micromanagement will consume a business when a drivers time is accounted for.

 

Very well said! I was thinkin of a reply right along these lines when I clicked the thread...

Dispatch to driver "WHAT, didnt you just poop 2 days ago??? What the hell you eatin, boy? Now get that rig a rollin, Ill tell you when you NEED a potty break...".
Yeah, I can just hear it now...

 

If we got paid by the hour there wouldnt be any truckers out here .... we’d be millionaires!! And would retire from driving.