How to calculate your equivalent hourly pay as an OTR driver

and again I say - that the days of having to know guido at the door are over...


our last 20 guys hired pretty much walked in and filled out an application...

5 guys were right out of driving school...


anyway - the jobs are out there - and available - but you have to present yourself to get them...

 

That may be true, Lat, but I think we have two different definitions of 'good job' here.

What you call 'good' I may or may not call 'good'. I, the honery skeptic I am, would have to say if 20 guys hired on last week at a company, I would probably avoid them. That's just me talking off the top of my head, of course. I don't know anything about your company. It may be 'good' by my definition, too. Hell, it may be GREAT.

What I'm saying here is what I've said a lot here: If a company is hiring more than one or two today, I probably wouldn't bother applying. I'd want to work at jobs where I have to get on a waiting list and pray to the great truck god that I get it, just like I'd be doing if I were applying at Caterpillar in Peoria. I use at CAT job as a standard for my definition of 'good' job. 2000 people apply today for 5 positions....that kind of thing. Yeah, if turnover is above about 5% at a company, count me out.

I probably need to lower my lofty standards if I ever come off strike and go back to driving. This is trucking we're talking about here.

 

if you look a bit closer you will see I said last 20 hired....


as in the last year...


our average driver has been with the company 20.4 years.

since I have been here no one has quit.

(you retire or get fired or die to leave...)

now I will say that a number of guys that got laid off last year did not return - but they were not looking at the big picture...

even being laid off 3 months out of the year you can make a lot more than running OTR for some big national company...

and getting laid off is a hazard usualy enjoyed by the bottom 15%, historical charts aside - most guys only see layyoff their first 2 or 3 years... (I never had the letter come in the mail... - ) depends on when you hire and other factors like the economy/how many guys retire that year.


anyway, I just want to do my part to get the word out - and to dispell as many myths as possible about njobs like mine...




I am amazed at the numerous misconceptions about Union trucking jobs.

"you have to know somebody"
"you have to inherit the job from your dad"
"you give the union 50% of your paycheck"
"union drivers are all old guys"
"they only hire you if you are liberal"

etc etc etc

Everyones experiences are different - but My Union career took off when I was going over my books as an O/O and weighing the good with the bad.

Unlike many - I had a steady income as an O/O - I was smart about my purchases and kept things tight and efficient. BUT, I had married the previous year and my being away even a few days at a time were starting to take a toll on our relationship. Prior to marriage I had already decided to find something local and wind down a bit - I had been a road ##### long enough and really wanted to enjoy more time being grounded and a part of my community...

At first I thought I would shift the focus of my biz to local short runs - but you can actually be home more running regional - or even like in my case running to AZ and back every week... A lot of the O/O's I knew who ran locals took a huge cut in pay and wound up spending hours every day in docks (for free).

Another option was to just run less... but as some of you know this needs to be balanced with the expenses of maintaining a truck (or two or three).

Anyway -I was looking over the books and something crossed my mind that I had written off a long time ago - union jobs....

I drove over to my local union hall (teamsters l. 100) and asked them about jobs - they refered me to the job bank on their national website.

5 hours later I was sitting in a Roadway office filling out an application
5 days later I was in orientation
5 weeks later I sold off my equipment
5 months later I was into a grove and home 4-5 nights a week

It has been almost 3 years and I can tell you I have never been happier driving a truck. I have a life again. I have put 7500 miles on my motorcycle this summer. My wife loves me being here to help out with things. There is s sense of belonging and community amongst union memebers that you do not get with over the road drivers (o/o or company).

My wife and I go out to dinner with others (yellow/roadway/abf/holland/ups etc etc) and have gained many great new friends...

Is there negative aspects to driving union? sure - but the good outweighs the bad in my opinion

I can easily bring home 1300$ a week - have ALL my insurance premiums paid - closed access to great 401k options - work towards a great pension - discounts galore on all sorts of things - and the peace of mind I was lacking with my own company.

You can be as involved or not with the union. The rules are simple - as are the expectations by the company.

politics? a little - but we are a diverse group. Looking around the drivers room I see farmers, old, young,liberal, conservative, moderates, NRA members, college grads, military retirees, 30 year men and newbies, 3rd generation teamsters and those like me that just walked in to it...


Union dues for me are 58$ a month -
my mileage rate is about 55 cents a mile-
my first year I made 50k
my second year I made 60k
this year I am on course to make about 72k

and keep in mind I do not run hard - there are many guys from my terminal that make 25k more than I do...

also - mileage pay is only part of the check - we get paid hourly for EVERYTHING elso - waiting on paperwork - repairs-breakdown-layover etc etc etc

your first year you are paid 75% of rate which at 55 cents is 42 cents
on your first aniversary you go to 80% (44 cents)
at 18 months you go to 90% (49.5 cents)
and you are 100% on your 2nd anny. about 56 cpm depending on equipment - triples pay more - long boxes and bobtails pay less (1 or 2 pennies per mile)


so far out of my terminal I have only been kept out for a max of 4 beds once - most of the time I am only gone one night at a time...

This job has made a huge impact on my life - my hobbies are no longer on a back burner - and the wife and I have plenty of time to goof off.


If I can help just one other driver get to this level of satisfaction - I will be happy...


If anyone has any questions on how to find a good union job - please send me a message...

- latanea

 

#### that sounds like a great company. Stay around here. I may need you in about a year.

I, as you may or may not know, am 100% pro-union. If I were getting my CDL back (I dumped it years ago) today, the first place I'd look for a job is a union outfit. I actually should say the "first and ONLY place" I'd look, as I wouldn't work outside a union these days. It took only one or two trucking jobs to see how badly people can be abused in the free market to ever go back to that. No thanks. I'll go for the jobs where I'm not looked down on as a disposible grease wrag. I imagine I'd not be looked down on if I were in a union.

But, unfortunately, there are many people out in the world who would freeload a union if they got on. For this reason, unions have to be cautious about whom they allow in the fold and thus require new guys to prove themselves worthy. I would expect to have to pay my dues for a year or so for this reason. At least it had better be this way. I wouldn't want to be in any union that would accept a total stranger with open arms and NOT force him to prove himself, ya know what I mean? This "dues paying" phase is good, but I may be a little too old now to be doing the dock work or whatever I'd be doing to prove my mettle.

But stay around. I may be coming to your door in a year or so. If I DO get back into driving, I'll be going UNION or I won't be going. I'm getting older, but I'm not OLD yet. Not by a long shot.

 

I don't think we should even think about per hr pay when considering OTR trucking. I know I did'nt. I have heard many of you more expirenced guys refer to OTR trucking in the past, as a lifestyle, eather you are cut out for it or you not.

I am leaving an hourly job that pays me 16.50 per hr to persue my dream of being a tuck driver. Now surely I had to sit down and talk to my wife about this and make sure my carer change would not have a negative effect on our family, and after doing all my reserch, and listening to the great advice from people like I find on this web site we have decided I should go for it.

So with that being said all I did was look at what I should make in two weeks driveing a truck verses what I make in two weeks at the job I am leaving and found that if I get the miles I am supposed to get than I should make just about the same pay. Sure I will be way fom home alot more and I will have delays and things that cost me money but the benifits that the trucking company I have decided to work for, are way better than my curent job so I figgure it should all even out in the wash.

And remember we said this is a life style, so if you feal that you need to be home every night in your own bed, than I guess you were cut out for an hourly job not a OTR trucker.

This is just my opinion, and yes I am a newb, and I know I have alot to learn about being a truck driver, so maybe I will have a whole new outlook on this 2 or 5 years from now.

 

but that is one of the things i pointed out - I am OTR yet I am home many times through the week -

yeah I dont go over the rockies or hit florida that often - but I do run a 600 mile radius of cincinnati - and on occasion a 600 mile further (1200 mile total out).

anyway - you can still come out and play with trucks - and get some good miles in on the hiways...​

 

OK, bringing back a thread from the dead. Figuring out the CPM = Hr. rate, and sorry if this is off the subject but how does a driver figure out his monthly income to balance home finance's with the monthly truck driver income can vary greatly in difference from month to month? This is putting a hold on getting my new house until I can figure out the number's. It's easy when you work a normal 40/hr week job at an hourly rate but being a truck driver's monthly income varies so much how do I figure this out so I can figure out my finances?

 

Well, a years earnings divided by 12 works for me if your figuring for a loan or something of that nature. You probably have an idea of at least how little you will make a month, so go with that and everything else will be gravy.

 

Thank you for pointing that out. I'm looking over so much #### right now that I am over whelmed. Including debt's, utilities, mortgage, home owner's insurance, property tax and recently added insurance for myself as well as my daughter when she turn's 1 but I still have 10 month's before that comes up for her but I'm not going back into company insurance. Trying to find something cheaper. Company insurance is eatting my ### up.