Moving from CWTL to CWF

my old terminal seems to be the only one that never had us pull that dolley... then again I was a big guy so they didnt have me do it. Yes you deffinatley will lose weight working there, trust me I did

 

youll be fine...we've got guys in their 60's rocking and rolling here.

 

Good Luck, I made the switch from CWTL to CWF and what a mistake that was... A mistake that lasted 2 months... They claim there 2 different companies but yet my checks came from the same exact address in Portland, Oregon... SO you lose your senority date along with your benefits...YOu obviously will get benefits after I think it was 90 days... You being the low man be perpared to now be a Fulltime dock worker/ part time driver... I didnt get fired I quit after 2 months but like the other driver was saying DOt your I's and cross your T's... They got some fire happy people workin upstairs at Conway Freight... In 2 months of working there my terminal had 3 drivers get fired... I worked my 14 every day and almost every friday would use the 2 hour extra bs rule that ltl can use... PLus an hour drive to work and home... The money was good but your gonna work for it... This was a couple years ago but i believe my checks in the 2 months I work there were take home average around $850.00-875.00......... I went back on the road where I currently am now... WIthin the next month or 2 im gonna try and get on at YRC...I used to be a dock worker at YRC before the merger... I dont mind working the dock but I wanna either work the dock all nite or drive all nite not do the combo deal...Good luck... And another thing getting out of a nice Conway Truckload rig to a conway freight rig is gonna be a shocker... I was driving an old CCX sterling with close to 2 million miles on it... No cruise control, no AC, no air ride seats... ANd imagine all the butts who have sat in the seat over the period of close to 2 million miles the smell inside the truck was almost unberable...Actually the truck did has AC just in the form of a little fan on the dash board.. No AM/ FM radio either...and yes conway freight also has newer trucks but look on the highway now theres alot of sterlings still out on the road for them... Good luck man... IF you got any other questions ill try and check back and respond for you... Im not trying to talk you out of them it just wasnt for me...

 

All I have to say is don't think of it as the typical trucking job. If you do, you will be very disappointed. I used to be OTR and now work for YRC. I don't do dock work and just drive line. Still I drive the same routes all the time and they get really boring. The equipment sucks too and I hate being on call. I liked OTR way better. The only thing that is keeping me in LTL is more home time (kind of, I was home every weekend OTR), the pay and the free benefits. Well sleeping in a hotel instead of a truck is nice too. LTL is a different culture than OTR. I you liked OTR you might hate LTL. Just saying go in with an open mind and pretend it's a totally new job, not just another trucking job. We have had 4 guys now that were OTR quit within weeks of being hired. Said it was to hard. We don't even work on the dock! You'll be logging plenty of dock time from what I understand. You'll make more money but you will work a lot harder for it. Good luck to you.

 

Con-way has a way a way of really not telling you about the amount of dock work you do. They told me in my interview that i would only work the dock during my training and line haul would be long trips. At that terminal line-haul was a HUGE joke. Majority of our runs were within 40-45 miles and work the dock there all night. And these hubs everyone was out to screw you just to protect themselves. You have to keep up a certain amount of motor moves per hour and cannot dock any freight. I'm surprised I lasted the 6 months I was there. I walked off the job when they wanted to cut my hours, heck most of the time I got 15 hours a week in all dock, basically they were using us to cut overtime. At least at YRC when I first started as a city driver, the times I had to work the dock was only dock work and driving was only driving. Line haul here is great, no dock, I get 350-520 miles per night, so e terminals the sets are already hooked and when I did a few layovers the hotels were really nice

 

I really miss it when CF, Watkins and Yellow would hook our sets and unhook them too. I do all the work at Reddaway about 85% of the time.

 

They start us out at 41 cpm. Detention is $16/hour. Good luck with CWF, I am sure you will like it a lot more than OTR.[/QUOTE]


Hey how does it work when you are at YRC/USF and you are not in a union shop? Is the pay lower? Benefits worse?

 

All YRC terminals are a 100% union. New Penn is a 100%, Holland is a 100%. Reddaway is the one we got that is mostly non-union although a few places have brought the union in. At YRC Reimer is in Canada and I have absolutely no idea about them. All I know is we use their tractors for the Canada runs... REALLY REALLY REALLY nice, few volvos, few cornbinders, plenty of power, and they are automatic too. They seem to handle ok on the mountains

 

Agreed. Most of Reddaway is non-union. I heard Seattle is union though. They keep talking about voting them in within my area. Don't know what to think about it cause I am happy with my benefits and pay. No way in hell you will ever see me drive an auto though. I will take my POS 80's model International over a new auto any day of the week. Our stuff trucks do pull decent though. I am just unhappy about them being governed out at 63 MPH.

Where does YRC govern their trucks at?