Trucks- John Oliver

Really?
Costco?

It may be true for some, but not for all of them.
Especially the stores getting served by the new Owatonna DC.

So many of those loads are cancelled at the last minute, so you wait for something else in an area with basically nothing.
Show up to the store on time for your drop load, they do not have an mt for you. You can take a back haul to Owatonna or a pallet load, or wait possibly many hours for a live unload. Too bad if you are not a dedicated driver from that DC, you will wait and be late for your next load.
I recently had a 5 hour live unload because the people during my delivery time were too lazy, when it was scheduled as a drop. I had to wait for the next shift to come in.

All the loads into that place seem to have a 0100-0400 delivery time, even for drops.
Get there at that time and there is a quarter mile long line of waiting trucks. It takes an hour just to get in, and then they tell you that you are late.

Living in MN and being GLR I get a lot of those loads.
That is not a good Costco from any end.

 

My experience at Costco DC's and stores has been universally good, no exceptions. My experience at Sam's Clubs and other customers are average, at best.

 

I haven't had those problems at other Costco DC's. Mainly Owatonna, MN.

The Sam's DC in IL is good, as are the stores I have delivered to from there.

 

Unbelievable that there are people in this thread arguing against mandated detention pay. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this point.

What truck drivers need:

1. Immediate detention pay. We already give the 1st hour free because you have to arrive to the warehouses 1 hour early to check in with the guard (if they have one), then check in at shipping/receiving, then back into the dock and all of this usually involves waiting behind drivers. So the norm in the industry is "Detention pay after 2 hours" but what they really mean is "Detention pay after 3 hours" because you can never arrive to your appointment exactly on time. So, detention pay immediately when the appointment begins.

2. More safe and secure truck parking in the form of rest areas - No excuse why we can't have more rest areas built. If the states can't afford it then the feds need to step in.

3. Mandatory access to bathrooms with toilets that have running water, soap, water and hand dryers for every driver that is doing business with a customer, even if it's just for 5 minutes. Port Johns are not acceptable. I don't care if some drivers are nasty. Some of the warehouse workers are probably pretty nasty too but they still get access to the facilities.

4. Paid for more On Duty time a certain amount. Paid for drop and hook, paid for fueling, immediate detention pay as previously mentioned, immediate breakdown pay. I'de be open to getting paid for pre trip and post trip too. Doesn't have to be minimum wage. But it has to be something. LTL linehaul, which are already on the same CPM payscale that most OTR drivers are on, already do pay for a lot of these things.

These things would be a good start. More jobs with a better work life balance of only working 40-50 hours per week would be good too. A lot of people get burned on running through their 70 each and every single week. The government probably can't regulate that, but I sure do hope the private industry starts placing more importance on a work life balance. Just because there is a 70 hour maximum clock, doesn't mean that most drivers want to work that much (it works for me a single man, but I can't imagine having a wife and kids at the house and working 60 - 70 hour weeks and missing so much time with them).

@LtlAnonymous I thought you made very good points in this thread. You can tell you do LTL and not OTR because you actually advocate for more workers rights, which is kind of a rarity on this forum but is what I saw in real life when I worked LTL lol. You'de never hear an LTL guy arguing about getting paid less or having less access to facilities, etc. etc.

For example not one linehaul guy (who are on the same CPM payscale that most OTR guys are on) that I spoke with were happy about the "hurry up and waiting" that they did at the terminal when their scheduled runs would be behind and they had to wait 1-2 hours past their runs scheduled start time. You would never hear a linehaul driver say "we don't need to be paid for waiting past our scheduled start time".

It's so odd to me in this thread to actually see OTR drivers advocating against detention pay starting immediately. Like, that whole mindset was just completely absent in the LTL world when I worked there lol. It's such an odd mindset to have, it really is and it seems it's just unique to the older OTR drivers. I don't get it.

 

Well thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it.

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret. I'm very well compensated for what I do. I'm paid for every moment of my day.

But there isn't a single over the road driver that I think shouldn't be making even more money than I do. I did it for 3 years. I know the sacrifice that goes into that lifestyle. It's absolutely brutal.

A lot of the older drivers you're referring to came up in the "miles miles miles" if those wheels ain't turnin I ain't earnin era and culture of trucking. They're just indoctrinated.

In the current system we have, pay is scattershot. Some companies pay one thing for detention, other companies pay nothing.

A law would make everyone pay something. And a smart law wouldn't put an amount or a cap on it.

I heard it asked earlier in the thread what if the government says you need to pay X per hour but you already make more than X?

Well a properly written law that didn't set an amount or limit would make whatever agreement you have in place that much more solid. None of your competitors could come in and easily undercut you.

It's not perfect. Nothing is. But what we have in place right now is brutally imperfect. We need to try something new.

 

Great post. Nicely said.

 

Do you really not see how mandating detention pay will just backfire? As I’ve stated before, any industry minimum will just lower those of us to the minimum who are already getting detention pay without any issues. If you are a driver then it is up to you to work for a company that compensates you in a manner that you see as fair. It isn’t nor shouldn’t be up to the government to regulate us all down to the same level.

Actually maybe I’d love to see it mandated. Have the government step in and make rules for businesses that they have no business regulating. Heck even make it immediate detention pay as you say. And then watch those businesses implement their new rules for carriers. And then watch drivers whine as they’re getting fined for being late for appointments because their employers are being charged for every minute that you are late for a delivery. Oh your appointment was at 7am but you didn’t get there until 8am? No problem, just pay the fine for being late and we will reschedule your delivery for our next available slot which happens to be about 4 days from now.

Detention pay should be a business to business matter. If the detention policy doesn’t satisfy you then don’t haul the load. From an employee / employer stand point, if your employer doesn’t pay you detention pay I doubt they’re holding a gun to your head to make you keep working there. Find another job.

Some people probably view it as a regulation would raise us all up to the same level, but I assure you it would just regulate us all down to the same level.

Restrooms I agree with you. Unfortunately this industry is it’s own worst enemy. When I was pulling food grade loads in a tank we had access to restrooms at most places, usually just ask when checking in and they’d let us use the ones inside. But we were generally cleaner and weren’t leaving trash all over.

As far as the rest of what you’ve said, there are plenty of decent jobs out there that pay well and you don’t have to burn 70 hours every week. It’s up to you to find them and make a change in your life. One of my early driving jobs was for a Pepsi bottler. Our schedule was 4 10 hour days, had a 3 day weekend every week. Just have to figure out what you want for your own life and go get it. Don’t expect the government to step in and make your life better for you.

 

Here is a question for this thinking there is government solutions for problems with drivers.

For those who understand this, it is important for others to understand it.

The amount of freight moved within the US in 2021 was ~5.7T tons of freight.

66% of this amount was moved by truck.

The amount of freight moved within the US in 2000 was ~5.62T tons of freight.

61% if this amount was moved by truck.

By the way, almost as much freight was moved in 1990 than 2000.

so here is my question.

do we really have a shortage of drivers?

to me, maybe it is just me issues like parking isn’t caused by an increases of freight movement, meaning we have to have more drivers to move more freight.

elds are not an issue either.


BUT … what to me is a real problem and cause for concern is the need for many companies to have drivers sitting there waiting for work to capture revenue. This returns to my post about returning to ICC style regulations and fixed rates.

 

Almost no one who is in this discussion was involved in the trucking business before The Interstate Commerce Commission was dissolved as a rate setting body. Deregulation occurred in 1980, 42 years ago.
The first 5 years of my owner operator tenure I was in a totally regulated operation, as was the whole industry, and it's competitors, the railroads.
These individuals who are throwing around the idea that the Federal government should get involved in some rate making capacity simply have no idea what they are talking about. Even if they are as old as I am.

Just because rates and terms were dictated (tariffs is the proper term) doesn't mean that the drivers in question ever got more revenue, either as company drivers or owner operators. There was more revenue sloshing around the business then, but the carriers were under NO obligation to share the wealth.

There were NO regulations that dealt with driver pay, conditions, detention, or any other salary issues. Collective bargaining agreements (Teamsters) were the only balance on the opposite side.

If giant concerns like Amazon can prevent collective bargaining at their whse's and trucking operations, then even the logical candidate, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, formed in 1903 is powerless to address inequities presented in the John Oliver video.
It is just another sign of the declining standard of living in the United States of America. We are just fighting among ourselves for the crumbs.

 

While fair, i posit that using weight as your proxy only makes it easy to miss that commodity type matters here

Many loads are lighter, or simply less dense, and the wider distribution network as well should play into this (if in 1990 you were off the beaten path, its not like you had a ton of store options, go to the nearest large town, but now? Theres a dollar general every 5 miles)