Pay,Risk and Talent

Okay, first of all...how long have you been driving?

 

Hopsing you're looking at this from a driver's perspective. Let me share with you a business perspective. Right now, I pay my 5 tow truck operators $21.75/hr. And I would absolutely love to be able to pay them $50/hr. But if I did that, my rates would have to sky rocket. We're known for being a local, family owned and operated company. We've been doing business 'round here for 65 years. We have a customer loyalty base where people are okay paying a bit more for the rates as is because of that brand loyalty. Not to mention our Triple A contacts and such things. But if I tried to pay my drivers $50/hr, my dispatch rate would have to go up roughly 2.6 times, and my mileage rate would have to probably go up at least by half or so. It's simply not feasible in this market place.

I get what you're saying. I get that. However, at the same time, by staying with your company that is screwing you – like that fella doing the team driving splitting 40¢/mile – you are consenting to the screwing. In this case, participation is consent. There's companies out there that pay a lot better and have better conditions. There's companies with better pay but worse miles. Better pay but you unload everything. Worst pay, better conditions. Worst pay, worst conditions. It's all in what you allow your time to be purchased for.

 

Don't know how to be any other way, friend.

 

If you pick up a load of apples at a certain price for apples per pound, call it 2.00 by truckload in Washington, and you need about 65 hours to get it to Atlanta Georgia paying that driver 50 dollars a hour, you need approx. $3250.00

The rate to get it there from Yakima is probably around 5000 dollars based on 2 dollars a mile over 2500 miles give or take. How pray tell do you think someone is going to pay pretty much near 10,000 dollars for those apples? Which probably will now be 4.00 a pound or more.

I do not know the exact relationship between product, mileage rate and so on, but one time we did a actual bid with a trucking company to transfer a contents of a house from Fairbanks to Arkansas. By the time the company and we hammered out a negotiated rate per mile we realized that we might as well junk the furniture there and buy for half or 2/3 total rate if we proceeded to hire a tractor trailer to do the move. The value in furniture was not there.

It's one of the few times we were people paying for a big truck to make a move in our lifetime. It's a experience I can tell you that. Right now I don't see those apples going to Atlanta for 10,000 dollars to accomodate both a 50.00 a hour rate for driving it there over 65 hours and pay the carrier more than what it cost in fuel to do it.

 

I guess you're right.

 

Maybe we could have a Citizen's Committe that would decide what every job should pay plus decide what the work rules should be? That way the people that are too lazy to train and find a good paying job would be guaranteed the pay and benefits that the hard workers get. It's only fair. And it worked very well for The Soviet Union.