What is abandonment of a truck exactly? How to get the heck out?

My first job out of school I worked for an o-o. Was going to pay me $400 a week (1984) to run teams with him from the BMC in KCK to the BMC in JVille Fl. After 10 days we are tooling along and I said "by the way, when do I get paid?".

"I dont think you deserve to be paid until you learn to shift without a clutch".

Just so happens we were a mile from the exit to the St Louis airport. I downshifted 1 gear at a time down the ramp (without a clutch). Grabbed my bag and that was it.

Last time I worked for an o-o. Last time I ran teams....

Oh I should mention he hired another guy from the same school. I told Adam what he did to me. Did the same thing to him. The school wouldnt let the guy in the door anymore after that.

 

No, not a 1099...according to my understanding. But a bait and switcher off Facebook. I would never agree to a 1099, or load percentage. I agreed to sixty-cents per mile, all miles paid. But actually, on the third day when I put this back into writing in an email is when I discovered they did not do email,, and tried to do everything on phone. I went online a day later, to get the phone recording app. I have them on the phone telling me in simple terms that I would have to accept the $50/day, no motel or they would retaliate by withholding pay, charging for retrieving truck, and reporting.
In fact, on day three when I was double checking my pay, and what they already owed me is when she tried to tell me I was getting 22%. I told her I was going to pull the truck over that second if she did not put that idea out of her head. Another question? I have not ever heard of such a low percentage anywhere, ever. Have you? But I have owned my own construction company, and I know the expensed and responsibility she is trying to avoid in the percentage.
My real questions are can anyone force a driver to get on the road when the dash is saying DERATE ACTIVE? I had a Peterbilt tech tell me in a 2022 Peterbilt which was derating on me that each time I stop and start the engine, it would derate even more, until dead. And Peterbilt would never ask me, nay, they would demand I park asap and get towed to a nearest dealer. Happened more than once.

 

Interesting story. Now my nephew just got hired by KLLM the mega...and I was all saying "Texas government has a school! just get the CDL and you are free"...but darned if they didn't have him in a real CDL, and a trainer within three weeks. He is currently out for his fourth week WITH a trainer, paid $800/week and has another four weeks to do when he gets his own truck to go solo.
I may be going to see about working there. It's local here in Dallas. SMH

 

Interesting story. Now my nephew just got hired by KLLM the mega...and I was all saying "Texas government has a school! just get the CDL and you are free"...but darned if they didn't have him in a real CDL, and a trainer within three weeks. He is currently out for his fourth week WITH a trainer, paid $800/week and has another four weeks to do when he gets his own truck to go solo.
I may be going to see about working there. It's local here in Dallas. SMH

 

I hope you are wrong about the "never see the pay" part. There are many avenues, and all of them can be implemented and any one of them may work. I live in the area of Ft. Worth, so easily able to be in contact. I believe if they were in Chicago, I would be screwed. So I get you are not afraid of that DAT or is it DAC report as I was? am? I do appreciate your reply. Feeling kinda dumb.

 

You just gave me an interesting idea! That whole at will thing. And I admit, I am pretty sure that whole DAC is a bunch of bs. There is an entire email chain for when we clarified I was a w2, NOT 1099, plus the idea I was looking to get out of this truck asap, but without hurting them if possible, but that I had serious suspicions of them planning to not pay me, or insurance fraud on load insurance or something else...which is why I demanded pay up front on my final load, which she paid, using zelle and noting "final load". Sounds like I didn't really have any real responsibility, especially after they twisted my arm the final time to get me to deliver the truck and check it in at the dealer.

 

You guys are a forgiving lot, I must say. since I live nearby the home office, does that make any difference to whether or not you might hire a lawyer to go ahead and take it on, since I do have a contract I demanded they sign prior to me bringing the truck to Indiana and the second dealer/shop which spelled out treble damages if they failed to pay me for all load $1580.00 and travel on airplane back home when I checked truck into dealer. So it's up to around $6k plus attorney fees, and maybe some more added for bad faith, intentional lies or stuff like that. I am in Texas. ?

 

It is a Texan and an immigrants daughter from Vietnam. I am not Texan, though my six year old daughter IS. The state I am born in, but left 2010 is California the worst state of them all...and I had a construction company with employees. I have not been spoken to in such a degrading manner as with these folks. They believe drivers are sub-human. Nearly said so in one of the phone recordings. I did not tell them until the end that I was recording them for days.

 

You have a contract? What does the contract say? Did you breach the contract as well as they did? If you have a contract that says anything about a requirement to provide notice, and you agreed to that in the contract then disregard what I said about at will employment. If you sign a contract, so long as its enforceable then at will goes out the window for the most part. Does the contract say they pay your way back home? I would get an attorney if I was you, unless you are confident you can handle it yourself. Sounds like at most you might have breach of contract, the fact you mention treble damages means you have read or know something about the Texas DPTA. But it all comes down to what your contract says really, what your duties were to them and their duties to you under the contract. Is there anything about litigation in the contract, such as attorney fees or is it silent?

 

Read through the refer forums before you do that. LOTS of unpaid downtime in refers. My second job was with Q Carriers (before it was all o-os) - refer. Mainly from Mpls to the SE. It isnt this way anymore, but for me I would get to some food warehouse somewhere and have to unload the whole trailer (they wouldnt take it on the pallets it was shipped on, you had to restack the whole trailer - and no lumper was going to do it for 20 bucks). I got paid a whole $20 for my time. The only reason I didnt tell them to shimmy up a rope was on the way back we usually had a fabric load out of NC going to fabric stores around Chicago. And it was $20 a drop. Sometimes as many as 13 drops on the trailer (big money in 1984 - or at least I thought so fresh out of the army). Not to mention the 9 cents a mile I made driving (yeah, you heard that right).