How's Everyone Doing in LTL Right Now?

Discussion in 'LTL and Local Delivery Trucking Forum' started by Mike2633, Aug 23, 2022.

  1. KaoMinerva

    KaoMinerva Transcendent God

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    Favoritism and politics are always at play on these jobs. I've been tryna do FEMA for 7 years now. No wife, no kids, free to do whatever... Never get selected. It's "random" but magically the same guys always end up doing it.
     
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  3. hotrod1653

    hotrod1653 Road Train Member

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    Ya know it’s a good day, when you see one of your best friends, and have to leave freight on the dock because you don’t have the room in your trailer for it.

    My kind of day.
     

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  4. Someguywithquestions

    Someguywithquestions Light Load Member

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    We're dead too. Dock guys getting 28-35 hours. Mandatory 1 day a week off for all dock guys. P&D guys are down to under 35 hours a week. Lots of complaining and guys talking about jumping ship after 10-15 years and not being able to pay bills. Line is doing better but still a decent amount of runs getting cancelled at night.

    We handle a decent amount of canadian bound freight. Will be interesting to see how the tariffs hit our terminal. Inbound we have days where the dock is nearly empty and barely anything going out for delivery. Outbound at night we are running about 1/2-2/3 of the volume we were before the election. A decent 10%-15% of our outbound is going to Canada.

    We've had a couple good days last week. But still very slow. The old hats say this is getting to be almost as slow as 2008. It's the worst it's been since then.

    Management says the flood gates are going to open and we'll all be crushing 70 hour weeks by late spring/early summer. But our terminal is ran by MAGA cultists. Never been told who to vote for at a big corporation or any job. I'll leave it at that though since it's politics.

    Not too certain I'll have a job with this coming trade war. I'm basically lowest seniority and we have a lot of driver capacity right now. They're holding drivers because they think everything will pickup soon. We haven't hired anyone at our terminal in about a year. Had a couple folks retire in that time. Sister terminals I've talked to when I could say the same. Slow as ####, hiring freeze, and people getting antsy. I'm sure if summer doesn't pickup that there will be layoffs. We aren't union and we are very bottom dollar driven. They won't pay insurance and crap for a bunch of part timers. If it wasn't for WA being an overtime state we'd probably have had cuts in manpower already. But they don't want anybody working more than 43-45 hours. Lots of riding from management about yard time, dock numbers, cutting out lunch breaks, expanding service areas, skimping on lift and pallet jack repairs, etc.

    I've little optimism at the moment. One good thing about non-union; possibly the only good thing, is hours are being cut uniformly for all workers. The low guys aren't having 0 hour weeks while the senior guys are maxing out their hours. Management knows that the guys with 20 years are bluffing about quitting because they are getting 10 hours less a week. The low guys will definitely run if they are literally starved out. Then if things do pick up, morale is decimated, you have a ton of unknown new hires, and you are caught understaffed.
     
  5. LTL Bull

    LTL Bull Road Train Member

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    Not very familiar with LTL are you? And as far as staying apolitical your term “MAGA cultists” speaks volumes.
     
  6. Someguywithquestions

    Someguywithquestions Light Load Member

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    You're delusional if you pretend that there aren't people who treat Trump as a cult leader even if you like the guy.

    Anyways, I already know LTL is up and down. Our brand is hurting probably the worst. Other companies P&D guys aren't anywhere near as slow. Corporate policies for us have really pissed off a lot of customers. Between a short linehaul run, dock, and P&D I barely scraped up 23 hours this week over 6 days. Again, we've many guys saying this is on par with 08.
     
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  7. LTL Bull

    LTL Bull Road Train Member

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    Slow for your brand not everyone else.I’ve spent many moons in the LTL side including CFCC,CF, and R&L. Still have many friends in the industry and none of them are talking about what you’re seeing. Though I’ve moved on to greener pastures I still keep tabs on the LTL industry overall as it is a leading indicator of the economy. With the capacity that came out of the industry with the fall of the dumpster fire that was YRC and UPS getting their undercutting grubby mitts off the old Overnite and spinning it off to TFI the LTL market is more stable than ever. There’s many new pieces of equipment rolling up and down 80, 90, 70 and 75. R&L just recently built five new terminals and even central has been running 2024 and 2025 Mack’s here in the Midwest. There will be no trade war. Canada’s already blinked. Just like Mexico. You pay too much attention to the fake news. I never said their weren’t people that follow political leaders of both sides in a cult like manner. Your choice of describing your management the way you did used a term with derogatory implications. How long have you been in LTL?
     
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  8. Someguywithquestions

    Someguywithquestions Light Load Member

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    Describing management in a derogatory way is apt in this situation. Being told in company meetings by management on how to vote in political elections is very unprofessional. Some weasel lawyer could argue it's the makings of a hostile work environment but I stay out of the office and away from the suits as much as possible.

    Second, every LTL in this area aside from Central and Fedex are running abnormally slow and looking at company health indicators from the stock market show that we've yet to pull out of the freight recession. Good for R&L I suppose, I don't think we have a terminal for them in our city.

    Additionally, for someone who is sitting here crowing about how long they've been in the LTL game you would think that they would know most big companies have contracts and plans to buy trucks periodically and at certain intervals. Every big company I've worked for had set schedules and contracts with truck manufacturers for when power units would be bought and sold. But I guess seeing a 2025 Mack rolling down the road for some random outfit means they're killing it out here. Just yesterday I was driving a 2024 freightshaker with 50k miles on it despite the fact our terminal posted a 22% volume decline for 2024 and around 18% gross revenue decline and a 21% net revenue decline. But I got that shiny new truck to try out and we have had 5 new lift gate trailers delivered in 2024. Guess we're doing amazing by that standard.

    Lastly, I guess I'm just a brainwashed "libtard" that has a shrine to Rachel Maddow and MSNBC next to my bed despite the fact that I don't even own a TV and haven't had cable in over a decade because we've lost at least 10% of our shipments in a week from Canadians refusing to buy American imports due to the threat of tariffs. I guess they blinked and Trump won that one. Meanwhile that's at least 3 hours a week of dock work for me that has gone away because Canadian customers aren't willing to import American products. And all of that is for what? We gotta stop the <1% of China White coming into the US via crossing the Canadian border and all those Mexicans coming in from Canada illegally? That makes a lot of sense. Meanwhile the "fake news and totally made up trade war" that Trump himself literally said he was going to start has directly hit my wallet. I'm in a border state with Canada. We shipped a lot to them. Not now. Barely anything is going there to them through our terminal.

    But I guess I'm ####ing stupid because, " huh, lookie here boy, i drove them trucks for years boy. i know bout the economy and ur just dumber than #### kid. i forgot more bout da ltl game then u know feller. yep all is good cuz i said so."
     
  9. MACK E-6

    MACK E-6 Moderator Staff Member

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    Drop the politics, both of you. Take that to the appropriate section of the site.
     
  10. BeHereNow97

    BeHereNow97 Heavy Load Member

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    The updates to freight volumes on both sides of the border are pretty interesting to read about at the current moment, given the ever evolving tariff situation.

    I don't understand enough about tariff and the greater economy (of scale) to accurately make a statement on them, so it's interesting for me to read boots on the ground updates for our close to the border drivers.

    I hope everyone will continue to give (respectful) updates on the freight volumes and general state of their companies as the tariff situation plays out.

    While I'm not in LTL, it's also slow season. This could be playing a role as well.
     
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  11. hotrod1653

    hotrod1653 Road Train Member

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    It’s looking like I might have to give up P&D sooner rather than later, which wasn’t my plan.

    I’m starting to have some health issues that may not let me keep doing the P&D side of things with CCFS. I’ll still work there, but with a day time line haul run. Either out to Belfield from Fargo or to Minneapolis.

    I’m hoping for the Belfield run, more miles and more money. Either one will be a daytime run.

    It’s that or I’m office bound,

    The plan was for me to do the P&D thing for a few years then head into an office job.

    As for now though, I’m still doing P&D.

    Hope everyone is doing well and staying warm.
     
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