Why do OTR megas pay so little for 70 hrs worked?

Oh it does make a difference how you get paid! Oh it really does! If your willing to accept CPM or percentage as a driver, the whole profitability of the freight chosen and the freight rate offered is changed.

CPM or percentage allows the trucking company to pull the freight a cost lower then what they could if they had to advertise an hourly wage or pay the minimum wage. It allows them to mismanage customers.

The trucking company can factor out the drivers work and time in the equation. Trucking companies, shipper's and consignee's can disregard a driver's time and work and waste it how they see fit. It doesn't cost them anything to do so.

This leads to the current situation we now have were drivers often work for less then minimum wage. Where drivers are detained for hours at time at shippers/consignees. Where driver's wait for days for freight yet seldom get sometime.

A company is using CPM and the piecework pay system to disguise the real wage for the work given. If companies had to advertise and disclose the real wage per an hour they were willing to pay drivers, they would get no applicants at recruitment. No, one would invest $4000-$7000 in their worthless training for a job that pays less then minimum wage.

If your stuck with so little experience that you have to take a CPM job, then so be it. You will work for free, that is the only reason they pay CPM. It relieves them of the job of managing their customers and business.

 

Maybe she's just "BIG BONED"

 

They don't pay for your time. They pay for miles driven but make you spend days at a time sitting without driving or being paid.

 

And it matters what the runs are, too. Run LA to NYC on CPM and you are banking a lot more money than you will running across town on CPM for the same hours worked. Because on that short run you will have much more of your time tied up at each end "unpaid".

Which is why lots of local jobs are paid hourly. And some are paid CPM, plus stop, plus per box, plus, plus, plus. When I started driving my father explained to me "There are as many ways to pay a trucker as there are truckers to be paid."

Which brings us back to: "Am I getting an acceptable return for my day's work."

Your pay is a part of the cost of moving that freight and it's up to you to decide if you are getting adequately compensated for your work. What pay scheme is used is immaterial to that equation.

I prefer hourly, but I would take CPM, per load or percentage in the right circumstance. How you are paid is not the question. What you are paid is. If it's not enough, move on.

Obsessing on the injustice of it all will only sour your attitude and negatively effect your work performance. If it bothers you that much don't work under that pay system.

I have seen way more people get fired for attitude than I have for incompetence. And the attitudinally challenged usually spent way more energy on their bad attitude than the incompetent ones did on their ineptitude. I guess in those cases working harder was a negative...

 

I think that's what she needs to get (big boned).
But it isn't in my job description, brother.

 

If I had the ability to earn $70K a year, and actually receive it in a paycheck, I would be in 7th. heaven, smiling from ear to ear.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

Exactly right. Every trucking company I've ever seen has a door on it. Don't like the way things are going and there's no chance of change? Walk out the door.

 

If more people throughout the workforce were in this category, there would be a lot less discontent and unhappiness all around.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

OTR has been a life saver for me. I love it. I was in a rut and never knew it. I love seeing the wide open USA. I get out of my truck when possible. Today I went down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast beach during my 34. Tomorrow I deliver much needed roofing materials to Houston, Texas, a place I enjoy. I got a bonus and a raise that didn't expect this week. To me the money is good and the life experience is even better.

 

More than likely, the assistants and helpers are working crazy hours for next to nothing, paying their dues to become skilled tradesmen.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!