Why do drivers have to accept freebies

There is only one real answer to this question. The company keeps doing it because drivers like you keep accepting it.
If you and all other drivers would simply not work under those conditions, the company will either start paying for downtime, or go out of business for lack of hauling capacity.

 

Not always. We pay by the hour. One of the things we keep an eye on is how long it takes a driver to make a run. Most of our work is fairly local so it's easy to track, especially with ELD.
If a guy is dragging his feet or milking the clock it shows up real fast.
We understand about traffic hangups and bad weather and waiting time at each end and we know that sometimes a guy just has a bad day. No problem. But if a driver is constantly taking an hour or two more than everybody else on a certain run we like to find out why.
One of the reasons we pay by the hour is because we don't want the driver driving like a maniac. We don't want them goofing off either. Our drivers understand this.

 

The problem with everyone being paid like you do is simply this, not everyone is as ambitious as you about getting the job done. Many drivers would become dairy farmers (as in milk the clock like a dairy farmer milks a cow). I've seen it back in my door slamming days, P&D local drivers leaning against their trucks shooting the bull, on the clock...if OTR went hourly, companies would have to add so many trucks to cover the same level of freight, they would have to either pay crap, or raise their rates to cover the cost, but that ends up driving away customers to cheaper companies. Bottom line, hourly doesn't work in trucking on a large scale.

As for the OP's original post, there are regular freight hauling companies out there that automatically pay detention. You're in kind of a specialized freight niche, but look at it this way...you make a decent living for a job that gets you home every night. How many regular 9-5 jobs would you have to work to make the same money, and how much time off would you have with them? Waiting time is part of most trucking jobs, always has been, always will be...bottom line is, at the end of the week, did you make an acceptable paycheck.

 

Your company obviously charges a certain rate for a load. Out of that rate, they have a certain percentage to pay the driver. They can break it down any way they want to, but it comes out the same.

I'm an owner/operator. If I take a load that pay $6 a mile, and I wait a couple of hours on each end, it works out to a certain amount. Now if I take that same load for $5 a mile, but they pay the wait time, it still works out to the same amount. They're just breaking it down differently.

If it makes you feel better to be hourly, that's great. But the big picture is what needs to be looked at. The weekly paycheck amount vs the time spent to earn it.

By the way, I've had hourly trucking jobs before (when I was a company driver) and never made as much as I made on percentage because I hustle and keep the left door closed. It killed me on hourly watching guys haul less loads and getting less done in a week, and still getting the same paycheck as me. No way I'd run a company like that.

 

Nah, they will never go away. Like McDonald's there is always someone willing to do it for next to nothing. And a huge part of it is the bs insurance companies requiring multi year experience. And top that with the biggest fallacy in trucking..


You must go otr and "pay your dues" to find a good company........

 

The truth of the matter is that if you’re paid mileage -like most OTR jobs- then what you should be concerned about is getting miles. If your miles drop, are they willing to listen to you and find a way to get them back up?!

It’s a performance based job- when you go in asking to find a way to get more miles (in other words PERORM more for them!) they look at you as a worker. When you go in asking about how to get paid for the time you’re not working (detention etc etc) they look at you as a slacker. The guy asking how to improve his miles is gonna get the better runs.

Personally, if I was paid by the mile (or load) I’d be focusing on getting more miles- not more detention pay. Mileage pay makes up the MAJORITY of your check. Detention is a small drop in the bucket. My thoughts would go towards getting more miles

 

I did for a year, wasn't my first year either. Wanted to try it out.

 

For smaller companies that would work, but if a mega went hourly...if their drivers thought they were being micromanaged now, imagine what that kind of system would do to the micromanagement department.