The End Of A Once Great Company To Work With: Anderson Trucking Service (ATS)

nigel dacosta · Aug 7, 2015

seawind said: ↑

This is going to sound very familiar to many of you. However, we never thought it would happen here at ATS.

As I sit here waiting for a load (again), I find I have a lot of time to write. It pains me to write this. I waited for many years to work here. When they started hiring in my area, I jumped on the opportunity. (I did not know it at that time, but it was to be a very bad decision). So, here's what is actually happening at ATS.

"Mr. Anderson" (God Rest His Soul), is rolling over in his grave. He started this company and his son (Rollie) helped him grow it.

Brenda and Brett Anderson (2 of the grandchildren) now have controlling interest of ATS. They voted against their father (Rollie) and their brother (Scott) at the end of last year, and booted their father out as CEO. Rollie is now in charge of International loads as has a token position as Chairman of the Board. Rollie was not perfect as CEO, but he did seem to care about the drivers. Brenda and Brett, do not.

The severe cut in driver earnings is of course, the number one problem. ATS has been skimming 35% off the top before offering their L/O's and O/O's a load for a while. Now they are doing it to the subsidiary companies. It seems, they want to eliminate the percentage option from the L/O's and O/O's. The mileage based pay system is horrible and most of L/O drivers are quitting. Many of them are earning less than the company drivers (like me). The L/O's are on a one year lease. When it come time to renew their percentage lease, we anticipate one of two things will happen: Take a lower percentage or accept the mileage program. Both "options" suck.

Customer Service Reps (CSR's) are idiots. They can' be trusted to acquire even the most basic information we actually need. Instead, we get garbage info that has nothing to do with nothing. It's like asking a CSR for the weather forecast and getting the sale price of melons at the market. Huh? Our CSR's constantly give us the wrong info and never verify anything. We send them corrected info and nothing ever gets changed to help drivers who arrive in the future. Sound familiar?

More and more, load times are "8 AM." Without telling us, we are being sent on more "cattle calls" to shippers and receivers. No actual appointment. We can't plan our day if we wait a long time to load. Our 14 hour day is shattered.

Load Planners do not seem to understand their job: plan loads. There is an increase in the number of times we are showing up to load with an unacceptable trailer. I have been sent hundreds of miles after arriving at a customer, to get the proper trailer. Then, ATS claims we arrived late for the load!!! What?

The personnel who work in "breakdown" are totally unqualified to even answer the telephone or respond via QualComm. My personal experience is extensive with them. Here is a simple example: I am (once again) broke down at a customer. There is a bad problem in the air lines of the trailer. I can't release the trailer brakes. Clearly, I am stuck at the shipper. I communicated with "Tammie" and another moron about the problem via QualComm. In short, I was told to bring the trailer to Petro for repairs 3 times!!! Each time I told them, THE TRAILER BRAKES CAN NOT BE RELEASED!!! They got mad and refused to talk to me any more. They thought I was stupid. Wow. I refused to drag the trailer to the Petro, so I am being uncooperative. Really?

Another example of the outstanding work done by "breakdown" was when I broke down on the road. I got safely off the roadway and was not in danger of being hit. However, after contacting them about my engine failure, them left me there until the next day!!! They forgot about me!!! They blamed me for not sending another breakdown message the next morning to remind them about being stuck out in the middle of nowhere. When I called Dispatch, my phone battery died before they could answer. I was on hold forever.

Which leads me to this: night and weekend dispatch is only ONE PERSON!!!! NO JOKE!!! They cover every division of ATS themselves!!! 1,500 tractors.

The maintenance department has been hobbled by the younger Andersons. They are now doing only the least expensive maintenance, PM's and D.O.T. mandatory repairs. They will refuse to do preventative maintenance that is needed because they want to save money. However, they will pay big bucks to have us towed and do expensive repairs later to correct the simple problem we tried to tell them about earlier.

The biggest problem here is now a complete lack of ethics. Company policies are changed on a whim. Our insurance is with crap carrier and costs us more. The dispatchers seem to have less access to basic info they had earlier. Also, when we call in, we noticed they are not able to talk freely. All calls are being recorded (as I have been told).

As we watch the destruction of a once great company to work with, I feel bad for "Mr. Anderson." ATS is becoming another sad story in transportation. The kids in charge are doing everything to hose the drivers and bumped up the value (profit margin) of ATS. We speculate, since they are doing all the wrong things, they must be setting up the company for eventual sale. Everything they are doing is classic bad decisions prior to sale.

If we wanted to work for scum companies like: Heartland, J.B. Hunt, Werner, Swift, Knight, Auto Truck, PTL, etc., we would gone there.
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The End Of A Once Great Company To Work With: Anderson Trucking Service (ATS)

nigel dacosta Bobtail Member

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