How's Everyone Doing in LTL Right Now?

Good chance, here I'm hearing a solid round of layoffs are coming this winter at a couple different LTLs. My old barn just cut 5ish more line bids. Couple new guys at my fuel job just jumped ship from LTL carriers. I saw the writing on the wall last winter and cleaned house financially to safeguard myself.

We shall see. We've always been the canary in the coal mine for the economy.

 

A couple of our barns are talking lay-off’s up here, my home barn and satellite barn I run to every morning are ok for now. The satellite one has been thinking about cutting drivers to a 4 day week though.

Lucky for me I don’t have to worry about that, I’ll be able to run freight up to them for sure.

 

Not sure how your barn handled non-cdl dock workers but after the change of operation we figured all the non-cdl dock would be laid off and the lowest 5-10 cdl guys, but the Yellow terminal was only 20 doors vs the 90 door holland terminal. The larger ones weren't figuring any cdl layoffs to start, but there would have been a lot of guys on close out with years in before they saw a city driving bid again.

 

I'm on pace to make $126K if I don't work anymore 6th days the rest of the year. I'll probably hit about $130K, which is $18K more than I made last year. Hoping freight picks up soon though. Gonna be a rough winter in Wyoming battling the wind and ice with 6K and 7K trailers all winter. Ugh.

 

All of our non-CDL dock workers were considered casual. They could come in or not at their own discretion but on the flip side, they were also working at the leisure of our TM and could be let go for any reason. When layoffs hit, the casuals would be the first to go, followed by the lowest drivers on the totem pole. The laid off drivers would lose their bids and run extra board or come on to the dock when times were slow. Then there were "hard layoffs" where you couldn't even come in unless freight picked up and you maybe got a day or two each week. In the five years I worked at Holland I was laid off every year except for one where the layoffs stopped right with me. It was a pretty miserable existance working there not knowing what would happen come winter. The hatchet would always drop on a Friday before you left on your route. You knew you were going into your weekend on a really bad note when they handed you your trip package and told you to report to the TM's office before you left.

I read over some of the other comments where people are having their barns go into a four day work week. To them I say "thank your lucky stars". If you are still getting 32-36 hours a week, you might not have money to fuel your boat this weekend, but at least they aren't coming to shut off your lights or water. A lot of you guys are fortunate enough to work for outfits that balance your work scales where you don't lose anyone. With us we didn't have any of that. We had plenty of jackhole senior drivers that couldn't care less how many of the junior drivers were being laid off as long as they got their 67-72 hours in.

 

It's interesting how the 'brotherhood' sticks together in hard times.

 

If you don't want those hours I'll take em! That's what happens when your household budget relies on dual income, but your wife has to quit with little notice to be with the miniatures.

 

We did them after they got back from their route, or for closeout in the last 2 hours of the shift.

A lot of my former drivers I still talk to are were surprised how much better the non-union carriers ran compared to us, and how they weren't just the first one out the door if freight was slow, they actually looked at who did the job well and who didn't, not just what day did you get hired.