Negotiating out of driver facing cameras

No, it certainly is one of those situations, the part where the individual stands up for themself and is laughed at. Im not saying he'll be successful, but SOMEONE needs to try first.

Beleive it or not, labor can and actually SHOULD have some amount of power. If you beleive otherwise, youre nothing more than an apologist for exploitaitive practices

 

Eh, fair enough, guess im not cheap at 20k /year, but im also not that much of a looker either so i cant command as good a price as you

 

It aint one of those situations. A driver ain't gonna tell a company how to run their business. I could see someone making a stand for something like pay or whatever. Protesting cameras in the truck to me is dying on the wrong hill. It isn't stopping him from making a living. If he really wanted to make a statement, he and other drivers should not work there. Enough drivers opting to work elsewhere may force their hand. Trucking is a "take it or leave it" type of business.

 

I have 4 years of experience. I’ve gotten 3 clean inspections and have zero tickets or accidents. There’s a company I want to work for but they’re governed at 67. Do you think I should negotiate for a 74mph truck when I’m trying to hire on?

The thing is, drivers are somewhat seen as a commodity. If you don’t apply there it has zero effect on their business. Nothing changes from this week to next week. But if they do hire you and remove the camera then once other people find out then they do have a problem.

 

"Yeah, workplace harrasment is fine, just work elsewhere"

"Black lung is normal in mining, youre not going to change that"

"A 16 hr workday 6 days a week till you die is our buisness model so go elsewhere"

"We only pay you barely enough to not starve to death, and your wife will need to work too, its just our buisness model"

"3 to 5 year olds fit in chimneys better, and who cares? Theyre just orphans anyway"

All phrases historically uttered in your same dismissisive tone.

Is a driver cam as bad as all those? No. But who cares? Improvement is improvement, dont advocate for poorer quality of life, you arent the good guy in that.

Im not saying he'll be successful, but why assume he should have 0 power over where he spends darn near 1/3 to 1/2 his time, more if otr

 

IF theres a driver shortage then yes, should be easy.

 

I agree no employees gonna tell the company how to run themselves. I think most companies are open to suggestions if you see something glaringly wrong and pointed out to them they’re usually grateful for that. As far as pay raises go. I actually typed mine out. Easy to forget your driver manager or the guy who is the one who would approve your raise is overseeing probably hundreds of drivers. They don’t know every detail of every driver specifically. In my case I went in there and said, I’ve got three years experience, I’m not a job hopper, I’ve never been late, I don’t turn downloads, never had an accident, never had a ticket, no violations of any kind, I run as hard as you guys want me to, I’d like three cents more per mile. And then I explained why I felt like that was in line with what other drivers of my experience were making right at their company. Guy looked at me and said “I can’t argue with that, done deal” shook my hand and I was making three cents more per mile.

 

Driver facing cameras are only as bad as the company that has them installed. Some are easy going and actually only use them in the event of a crash, some monitor them 24/7. The company I work for stopped using them, and the story I heard was...a driver was stopped at a red light and took off his glasses to clean them with his shirt. While doing so, a car ran into the back of his trailer and the driver of the car died. Courts ruled that since the truckers glasses were off, and the parking brake was not applied, he was operating the truck without corrective lenses and the company had to pay quite a large settlement.

 

But in your case, you have ZERO leverage, LOL.

Good luck and I hope you learn something out of this.

 

I'm just very stubborn. Most things in life I'm flexible and mild mannered on, but a few things are lines I absolutely won't cross and driver cameras are one of the few. But I'm also human and have a price, so for $2950 per week, I'll take the job with a camera and have a nice smile on my face for that same camera.

 

You know there’s not. There’s not a company in this country that’s shutting down because they can’t find drivers.

The guy where I drop my trailer has around 10 company trucks I think. We were sitting in his shop talking about how good his newest flattop would look with some old school stripes. And he said he can’t do anything like that because if he does one he has to do them all to keep the other drivers from complaining. I imagine it would be a lot worse at a larger company if they let one guy remove the camera when they don’t need to hire him in the first place.