Comments By Lynette O.

I too am with CRE, are you sure that it was a one year contract? Mine was for 9 months and this info is current as of a month ago. Also, your cents per mile is for the total miles driven on the truck not your miles alone. You will be with a co-driver/trainer. You will also get an increase each month.

I had a Class B license and when my medical certificate expired I needed to change the interstate designation to intrastate in order to keep my Class B. I currently have a Class A permit with the intrastate designation while I await my medical waiver from the Feds for my insulin dependency. Of course I can't drive either Class on the roads until I get it. This is for Washington State. Check with your state licensing department to see if you can do this.

Well said. I hope others will see this and make the choice to finish what they start.

Glad you are going for what you want!!! I hate it when someone tells me that I can't or shouldn't do something. Kind of makes you want to do it and do it with excellence. I wish I could have figured the same thing out at 39 instead of 52.

Enjoy your new life with your head up.

The grey is viewed and green is not viewed by you.

I am going out on the crazy limb here...is it possible to take a poll for/against union representation?

I have read many accounts on this forum of truckers being terminated for various things. Workers and their families losing that vital means of support. It is too easy for a company to fire a trucker. Too costly to that driver to get legal representation to fight the unfounded termination. So the driver attempts to move on to another company. But finds non-factual information on their DAC and no one will employ them. If they had a union, these things would happen less and workers wouldn't have to be in constant fear of losing their jobs. One of my co-workers once said to me, "If you just go to work and do your job, then you wouldn't need a union." Amazingly, he was very vocal against our union. Until the day he was called in for a disciplinary hearing of his own. This co-worker was a retired police captain now working as a bus driver. After the new union took over he became one of the shop stewards.

I have also seen other forums and articles telling of sexual harassment in it's most violent extremes. Who is the one that is fired usually? What do the companies usually do with the perpetrators? Who holds these companies accountable to protect their workers? What is wrong with wanting to be safe while working with a trainer? Do you really believe these women and other groups filing the class action lawsuits have nothing better to do and just want to get big bucks off these companies? Don't you think a union would make sure the company was protecting their workers?

There are many more aspects to the positive reasons of unions besides just your wages, although that is also a good reason.

I have worked under 5 different unions starting at age 20. In the beginning, I really didn't understand the benefit to them. Not until I was working in an electric company. I started there as a CSR in the call center under IBEW after 2 years I wanted to move to the field reps where I would knock on doors and ask for customers' payment of past due accounts or disconnected the electric meter. At the time, women had never done that job. I noticed that male call center CSR's were welcomed but a woman had never asked. Well, I was transferred to that department since I met all the requirements, seniority being one of them. The supervisor did many small things that made me feel that he didn't want me there. Then my first trainer made it totally clear that I was not wanted in the department, heckling me for using a meter puller (safer and the required method), telling me that "us men, just use our hands and you need to go to the gym to build some muscle." That day, I called my union. After my grievance, things changed dramatically. More women came to the department. Turned out, women did better than men out in the field. There was a huge decline in volatile incidents with customers in the field with the women. I could possibly had the same outcome without the union, but it would have taken years and a good lawyer and money.

On to my next union job as a city transit bus driver with the oldest union in America, Amalgamated Transit Union or ATU. This is where I found out that not all unions are good. In my first year there I saw how afraid my co-workers were of management. They didn't want to make waves at all. They didn't want management to even notice them. Disciplinary hearings were frequent about twice a week. This was for only for 120 +/- drivers. And it seemed to me too many drivers were terminated. I had never seen anything like it before being a union shop. Then I started getting my own disciplinary hearing invitations and got to see how the ATU represented me. They mostly said nothing and when they did it backed up management. This went on for about 4-5 years, until my last hearing where I was accused of an alcohol problem. Stunning to me, since I didn't drink. I was ordered into alcohol counseling to keep my job. ATU said nothing and agreed with management. That was when I approached Teamster's to take over representation for our bus drivers. A year long process that was successful. Unfortunately, I was now a target of management. I was terminated right as the transition from ATU to Teamster's was completed. YES, it was worth it!!! I was an employee there for 6 years. In that time of disciplinary hearings, 99% were won by management and there were 17 terminated drivers. In the 4 and a half years since, it is rare for a driver to lose a hearing and no terminated drivers.

And to address Brett's true comment about management salary...under ATU the upper management salaries were more than what their equivalent's were getting in Seattle which has almost 4 times our population, many more routes and drivers. Since Teamster's took over, most of those exceedingly high salaried managers were replaced by reasonably salaried managers.

Thank you Errol, for getting some of my other ideas/secrets out. It comes out much better from a male. If I would have said something like that, I might have been tarred and feathered.

Luckily, at 52 years YOUNG, I was able to catch on to the reference of Fred and Ginger. Now you have me thinking about driving a truck with heels on. Hmmmm...

Ramona, don't worry about being a woman in trucking. Most companies are happy to get us. If you think about it, women are a better bet than men when it comes to keeping their company's equipment and loads secure by not using the "professional" dating services provided at truck stops.

There are several other reasons I can think why companies would be happy to get us, but I don't want to hurt any of the guys feelings here. You know how sensitive and emotional they get. Lol!