Recruiting tales

4trax hires new immigrants mostly. How they get lcv certified is beyond me…. No way most of those guys have 2 years and 150,000 verified km. If mb would actually investigate and verify the training, they would be shut down.

 

Companies issue the lcv, but the trainers have to go through a 3 day course here. Refresh every three years. Most of these drivers don’t speak English, no way they did a 3 day 8 hour course here.

 

My safety department applied for a few of us to get LCV trainer certs, one day it was waiting for me in my mailbox at the terminal. No course, no nothing. I called Safety to ask, and they said they filled out the applications as specified and the certs just showed up; they were confused as well.

 

This didn't happen to me personally, but we recently had some guys apply, who were recruited by TransX and Loblaws (new Canadians), they got hired, did orientation, got in a truck, and waited weeks for their first load. After that load, they waited 2 weeks for the next one, so on and so on. They of course quit, and while cleaning their trucks out, the next contestant came and moved into the truck they were vacating. Seems like a lot of the bigger places, just keep the hiring going, even tho they don't have work, and just want drives "in a truck" just incase a load comes up. One TransX guy told me he did orientation, waited a month for a truck, then had to find another job.....sad.

 

I figured something like this was going on.

 

That partially explains the New Way of pulling turnpikes I set my cruise around 108 and have some turnpikes pass me .

 

I'm frankly surprised that Canadian (or is it provincial?) law allows that. Here in New York state, if you go to work and they say "we don't have any work", that means you are technically "on layoff", and can report as such to the State Unemployment Insurance department. I had a carrier do that on me once ("wait a couple weeks for a truck to become available.."), and boy-howdy, a truck became available the very next day, along with a load heading to Denver!
So, do some research. You may have to wait a week or so to start getting payments for UI (here in NY, you only need to do the 1 waiting week once in any 18 month period..), but if they are keeping you waiting but not working and you are an employee, you ARE considered 'laid off'.

 

Doesn’t work the same here.