Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

They are not technically supposed to touch us. We fall under a different labour pool. Which makes it that much more attractive to try to get us to cover some local runs. It is free labour for the city P&D charts when they look at the manpower reports. Most of us still accept a run because it pads our paychecks at the end of the month. In some cases, it does burn up enough of your logbook to screw up the rest of your week.

For example, I did 10 hours of P&D over the past week... I was offered to do two 550 mile round-trip turns (with a layover in the middle). I had to turn it down. I just lost way too many hours. It totally sucks, cause line always pays better than P&D.

 

Our city/line guys get along. There are only so few of us though. I slip seats with the P&D guys. Part of it is we are in the middle of winter and I run a twin screw. I usually never care as long as they leave me at least half a tank of fuel to work my route/turn. Some of the day shift guys smoke in my truck... used to bother me, but not anymore.

 

So looks like YRC gets to live to fight another five years. They finally got an agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamster (IBT) to sign another five year contract with em. Long story short, they are gonna resume everyone's pay to the scale that was set in place prior to Dec 31, 2013. Not sure if I am getting a pay cut, or if I just won't see another pay raise come my completion of my second year.

The alternative was YRC going belly side up if they could not secure a labour agreement (which in turn would have prevented us from getting refinanced to pay off our enormous debt). It totally sucks cause the regional companies under YRC (USF Corps & New Penn) are actually very profitable. Needless to say though, the smaller companies under the YRC umbrella are all asked to make yearly contributions to help off set costs.

I still have a job though. So that is good. They DID give us a $750 bonus this week to "offset" the paycut/freeze. Not gonna post the memo since I assume this is all company sensitive. All the other info I provided is available on IBT boards and some logistics newsletters all over online.

Some of the "terminal talk" had some mixed feelings about this whole thing though. Some guys theorize that YRC is about to make a comeback and want to freeze wages across the board so they can reap the profits. Some of the other guys swear this was necessary so we do not go under. YRC would have had to sell off the regional companies since by law, you can not file for bankruptcy if you hold companies underneath you that are still profitable. Either way, it looks like this is gonna be a rough ride over the next coming years.