Working for free...where do you draw the line?

we have to call them, monthly for a safety "meeting"....

lasts all of about 15- minutes, many times under that.

no, i am not nuts, ALL of us employee's are on salary...

the only safety meeting we get paid (and fed), are the yearly ones.

 

Key word being "fed".....

 

LOL...we have an annual safety lunch. The company pays for the lunch and the employees get paid for whatever time the meeting takes.
One year a new guy asked why we didn't get paid for the lunch too. The owner was very direct..."I'll buy your ######### lunch but I'll be goddamed if I'll pay you to eat it."

And, for the record, our guys are hourly. They get paid for everything they do. Except eating lunch.

 

yeah, they order up several pizzas....that was my first time trying a Hawaiian pizza...not bad, but i won't be paying for one myself...lol

and all the soda and coffees we could guzzle....lol

 

I Dont "Turn a Tap",unless Im on the clock.Sorry,No free "Grunt work"outta this guy.No,Im not gonna "hostle trailers for an hour etc.

 

I'm paid per ton, which works out to about .62/mi, loaded and empty. Any time spent waiting for whatever reason is paid hourly, and any trips over 550 miles are paid an additional .40/mi. We document *everything*, and receive additional pay above and beyond any activity not directly related to pre/post trip inspections, fueling, loading, unloading or driving.

 

I often wonder if the average driver has a clue how much money the average carrier pays out on damages. This is more than just paying for accidents. It is loses from damaged freight and paying fines for late deliveries. These carriers are trying to use education in an attempt to slow down this cash drain. You want to place blame for these stupid and aggravating safety meetings and training, blame the drivers out there that are no more than steering wheel holders. It's not that I am trying to take the side of the carriers here. It is just that I constantly day in and day out see this. A shipper only pays so much for a load plus accepting the fuel surcharge. As an (average) paid by the mile OTR driver, you are going to from time to time be forced to (work) for free. It is part of the job and you might as well accept it. Depending on the situation you might get some money on a case by case basis. There are many other forms of trucking. many drivers are paid hourly and many that are unionized and all of this is covered by their CBA. There are also some carriers that have accepted the fact they need to pay drivers for situations like those maddening waits to live load or unload. The better carriers fight this by going in on keeping trailers in these places so a driver can just drop & hook. I can't tell you how nice this is.

One more point here. All the (I am not going to do it aside) posturing going on in regard to this is OK. However, there is no line you can draw in the sand. You do this or quit. The average carrier will have another warm body in that truck within 2 weeks. I want to make sure I am being understood. I am well aware that there are many carriers that don't abuse the drivers like this. I am not speaking to these carriers. I am talking about the driver mills out there. In these situations, if you refuse to follow their rules in regard to safety training they will finally at some point fire you.

Many years ago a (DO NOT REHIRE) meant just that. I know a now retired trucking company HR critter. This person told me his company after termination would place the letters DNR right on the header of a drivers file. Today carriers are not as likely to do this. The point is this. Carriers are trying to keep their unassigned tractors at no more than 5%. Last I heard this was closer to 10% today. Because of this carriers are bending over backward to keep warm bodies in those seats. The negative to this is the simple fact too many of these drivers are costing the carriers large sums of money. It almost places the carriers in a catch-22. Bottom line? Count yourself lucky if you are being paid to do some of these tasks. If not the only solution you have is to simply quit. Those are hard words, but crying about it (aint) fixing it!

 

Things like 34 hour resets, being gone a whole 196 hour week and only getting paid while I'm driving. My current job I can go home at the end of the day devide pay by hours worked and come out pretty satisfied. I make $175 per day if I can complete my run in 8 hours or less that's $22 per hour, sometimes I have completed it in less.

I love my job and driving locally but I don't know how people put up with otr. So much unpaid time. When I went through training sitting in the bunk on a 34 reset the first thing that came to mind was I'm not getting paid this is not a day off. My wife and kids are at home. I'm lonely and miserable. Of course I was in training and gone from home 8 weeks straight. It was the most depressing time in my life. You don't realize how attached you are to someone like I am with my wife, until you don't see her for 8 weeks. Being otr made me appreciate her more.

My current job might have it's quirks but I have learned to take the good with the bad. I am happy overall with what I do. No trucking job is flawless but this is pretty close to it.

So to answer the original question I like to devide out hours worked by pay and come up with at least $18 per hour. I average much higher then that.

 

Even doing what I'm doing you don't always get paid for everything you do. Try to find a happy medium where your average is decent.

I think otr has major flaws and needs changes. It's why that type of job has such awful turn over rates.

 

I just recently left a company that required drivers to sweep out 53 foot trailers before arriving at customers......and our customers
Checked for cleanliness......or no entrance into warehouse.......
Also, safety briefings (online) as well as quarterly safety modules(approx 1.5 hrs) had to be completed by a specified weekday , stated by Fleet Mgr , or else any new dispatches would be WITHHELD until completion of module performed.......did we get paid for it ? No........did our pay get threatened if we did not YES......shruggs......we are a group of workers that in reality, are RESPONSIBLE for company assets even when not " on duty"....... always responsible , with "some compensation" in between.......if you park truck set brakes, you are still in "responsible" mode........its the strangest thing truck driving.......strange......