PTI / Amerigas

I thought they were a good company to work for, but now that has changed. Recently in a nationwide conference call with the drivers the CEO (Byron) said "The bottom line is to make sure that the share holders have money in their pockets". In a letter to the drivers Byron has stated that company drivers are going to have to haul paint, cement or asphalt in another region while outside carriers are going to haul LPG for PTI/Amerigas during the summer months. Worse than that, he is now allowing bids from outside carriers to haul LPG year round, and that will put some drivers out of a job.

They have shown me that they don't really care for their drivers and all that matters is that almighty dollar. My RLM wouldn't return my emails or phone calls when I had a problem that I needed to discuss with them. When I emailed the RLM to inform them of days I needed to take off, I never heard a word back. Then if you take off you get in trouble. When they do talk to you they will lie to you just to make you happy. They have a poo-poo runs down hill policy. The pay is .405 cents per mile, all miles. $14.25 load pay and $14.37 unload pay. They pay you $85 per week to fuel your truck and do your inspections. They look for every excuse not to pay you all of your quarterly safety bonus. You won't get very many miles a day in the summer time. I was taking home $1000-$1300 net for two weeks work in the summer. The winter months are better at $1300-$2000 net every two weeks, but you will have to live in the truck all of the time and work 70 hours per week. The truck is like a day cab with a casket tied to the back of it. There are no shelves (to speak of) or closets in the sleeper for your belongings. It's too small for almost anyone to live in. The truck has only one fuel tank which leaves you fueling sometimes twice a day (something they only pay you once per day to do). The company would rather sacrifice the drivers comfort and get more LPG gallons hauled so that they can make those share holders happy. If your truck breaks down and is in the shop then you don't get paid anything and you're forced to use your PTO days so you will have money. They will also let you use your gas to travel to a district and work 8 hours a day at $14.25 per hour. The problem with that is that you have no idea what they want you to do until you get there. More times than not they don't have any work for you so they have to create some, or take some work away from someone else there. That doesn't make you very many friends. Most drivers refuse to do this and choose to use PTO.

They preach safety, but the dispatcher will give you more loads than can be done in one day during the busy times. I know for a fact there are several drivers that are working more than 14 hours a day in order to accomplish getting the loads completed when it's busy, because they told me this when I asked them. Those drivers still can't get all of the loads done everyday by doing this, just sometimes. The dispatchers gets mad if you tell them that there isn't enough time in your 14 hours to accomplish all of the loads they are dispatching you (even though mathematically it's not possible). They would rather you say that you will try knowing that it can't be done, and then have you call back at the end of the day and tell them that you failed to get it done. This is the only place I have ever worked that dispatches that way.

I have talked to some of the veteran drivers who aren't happy either, but they are at an age that nobody else will hire them so they don't have much choice other than to stay. I wish I knew what I know now when I applied to work for them. I would have moved on to somewhere else.

If you don't need much money to live on, and you don't mind driving a worn out truck with a small sleeper, then you might not mind working for them. The benefits are good even though they have cut back on them some since I started working for them.