why arent we ALL commenting on detention pay policies

Whether we like it or not, government regulation of our industry has been rampant within the last decade so. It is going to make a lot of drivers ineligible to drive. How about we get maybe just one or two regulations that are actually in our favor?

 

None of them work in our favor right now, what makes you think adding more regulations would be any different?

You know good and well that the ATA, TCA, the mega carriers, and all of the anti-trucking special interest groups will try to use this to their advantage - at our expense.

 

Well what's the answer then? Drivers in 1980, the last year before deregulation, were making equivalent to $110,000 in today's money. I am blessed to be working for a company that pays that, but how many regular run of the mill companies are really offering that now? That was just the average truck driver's salary. It was an amazing life. And then these companies came in and decided they wanted a bigger piece of that pie, and we let it happen, and we cheered them on because of capitalism.

 

I mean seriously. We let these companies decide that we were uneducated bumpkins, when we are heavy equipment operators who have far more interactions with the public than any other heavy equipment operator, and we decided that was worth maybe $60,000 per year? Just because most of us don't have college degrees?

We need some kind of help. I don't know what the answer is, but between government regulation and companies deciding we aren't worth paying, we need some kind of assistance.

 

And as much as I would like to be a libertarian, government regulation is a good thing. Think Enron, and think the banking crisis of 2008. Unchecked capitalism goes to a bad place.

 

What’s the FMCSA going to do? Mandate that companies pay detention? Because they have no regulating authority over shippers and receivers.

And if they do somehow end up being able to pass something regulating shippers and receivers I have heard nobody talking about the flip side of this. Let’s just say it’s $100 an hour anything over one hour. Well what do you think will happen if a truck breaks down? Or if they’re late for any reason at all? I’d be charging the trucking company a minimum of $100 an hour until my load shows up. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Plenty of us get detention pay. And the ones that don’t get it want the government to save them instead of bettering their situation on their own.

 

Oh believe me, I am not a person who doesn't get detention pay who wants the government to step in. I want truck drivers to have a better life like I already do.

 

“We” don’t need help. Many of us are perfectly fine without the government trying to “help” us more than they already have. Like I said in my other post, learn to do something else if dragging a box isn’t cutting it. The companies didn’t decide what drivers are worth, the market has. And as long as they can fill seats paying what they do then what is their incentive to pay more?

 

Deregulation in 1982..approximately....got the fed's out of setting rates and lanes in the trucking industry.
The government screws up every they touch and I dont want them involved in my pay !

 

I mean that's fair enough. But the fair market is highly susceptible to collusion. Especially when there seems to have been an unspoken agreement to not pay anybody a dime more than they absolutely have to.

As unions have failed, business owners have kind of taken the attitude that people can go live in boxes if they don't want their low paying jobs.