Drivers Guaranteed Pay For All On-Duty Hours - Transportation Bill

In a very general reply for everyone who is complaining about pay vs. hours (potentially limitless, since 'overtime' doesn't exist, 'salary' doesn't exist, and 'hourly' doesn't exist): In the year of 2014 (1 technical unclaimed legal dependent adult): I made a total of $5.4k net income. Far below indigenous status. How anyone could complain about getting $600/week is beyond me.. Sure driving in traffic can be stressful. But that's about it for me. I drove ~10hrs yesterday, paid $38.25 in gas, and enjoyed every moment of it (personal road trip with my overnight crew, and girlfriend, as a 'farewell to school' trip). I would almost be willing to kill for the opportunity to make even $20k net income this year.

I have myself, my girlfriend, our baby (not my biological child), and her disabled father ($700/mo. doesn't cover rent; Section 8 is out of the question) to take care of. If I have the OPPORTUNITY to work 70hrs a week, and get paid more than: $5.43/hr (net income after all taxes (~25%))... You'd better believe it! I will. The last two hourly jobs I had: The general manager became upset because I sent pictures of stuff not being done in the workplace (on going problem that I couldn't keep up with): I was removed from the schedule for 1-3 weeks. I can't see issues like that occurring in trucking. If allowed to assist in loading/unloading (nothing I'm not used to): I sure would! It'd cut down on that WAITING time.. and INCREASE that PAYING time! This post sort of drifted around. My apologies. It just bothers me deeply to see people complain about getting paid a high wage for a decent job ('career').

I am with you on that one. If I do not even break 30 the first year it is still a start and experience. I would like to do this for at least fifteen years, but if not I will move on. I will expect more when I can do more. Hell some are already complaining and they have not even driven a year yet.

My instructor stressed nearly everything that Brett and other 10+ year veterans on this forum stresses in regards to safety, low intelligence requirements, low pay, but awesome perks (nature). Especially, and above all else: Work a minimum of 1 year before passing judgement, or changing backgrounds in the field of the trucking industry.

Well you guys are spouting the typical "truckers against trucking management" and "business owners versus employers" stuff which, as usual, holds very little water.

I have noticed that any such comments along these lines hold close to NO water with a sizeable contingent here, almost regardless of the details. It's all just whining to some.

But there are rather common business practices in the trucking industry that would be almost unheard of and unanimously condemned anywhere else. For example. I would say 60 to 80 percent of my paychecks are in error, and that error is ALWAYS in favor of the company. I'm talking about expenses for which proper forms have been sent not being reimbursed, empty miles for a run simply not paid, dispatcher approved layover time not paid, 4 days spent filling in on a dedicated run , paperwork scanned immediately and three paychecks later I have yet to see a penny from it, trailer spots and pickups not paid, sent to a shipper on a Saturday, a shipper that is closed all weekend, and paid nothing for the time spent waiting to find a drop location nor for the miles to take it there, miles sent to a Hazmat pickup despite not having Hazmat not paid. Detention pay...forget about it. I know drivers with 7 years in the company who have never received it. I have sent in mac14s as one of the steps in qualifying for detention pay...almost invariably the company simply denied receiving them. Layover pay....50 bucks ? For being on call and available for dispatch, while securing/guarding a few hundred grand in company equipment and customer freight for 24 hours ? Breakdown pay....fifty bucks for twenty four hours spent at a company location at least nominally overseeing necessary work done to company equipment, and maintaining availability for dispatch ?

And on and on. I am told that these and other variations on the theme are very likely to be found at my next company too. And the one after. Most of these issues are eventually resolved but only after sometimes lengthy calls to dispatch and payroll, pleading my case for money that I rightfully earned, and that after getting through the almost always lengthy hold times. And usually on the first call to each, action is simply avoided by payroll saying talk to your fleet manager @ that, and the fleet manager saying get with payroll on that.

This is not accidental, these are for by far the most part not 'mistakes'...if they were I'd have had at least one in my favor in 100 weeks. They are deliberately shorting drivers on pay and hoping they don't have the intelligence to decipher their paycheck and spot the 'errors' , the assertiveness to speak up about them, the tenacity to stick with the tedious process of having them corrected, and the composure to clearly, politely and succinctly state ones' case while doing so. ( I actually prep for these phone calls...write a little script of sorts...because I (a truck driver) have to be every bit as on top of these numbers and policies as the (accountant or bookkeeper) in payroll is, or I'm gonna get snarkily dismissed.

A driver is lacking in any of the above, and the petty theft is successful. If that's not business owners against employees, I don't know what is.

Ugh. Just in case anyone reads it, only the first sentence in the post above is a quote from someone else's post...the rest is my response to it. Can't seem to find an edit option here....

Thanks Brett. With this thread, I now understand your position. You know sometimes when you learn something, finally it all "clicks". I knew being a trucker is not easy. Everyone has to have their reason for driving. Well, for myself, I'll find out my future the week of May 26- my start of Prime orientation.

I would like to see pay for on duty not driving time logged, but at the same token it realy would not add that much to your pay. I know i do everything i can to be on that line as little as possible as that takes away from the time i can drive each week. Getting min wage for that time would do NOTHING to change that because i still make more while driving.

It would also hurt some of the smaller companies, however the big companies like SWIFT Werner Crete ect would see no real impact as they are the ones with the money.

There are FAR more important and impactful things going on right now like the speed limiter bill that will force all trucks to have a speed limit of no more then 68 MPH

If anything they need to stop trying to regulate something they know NOTHING about. Things like the 34 hour reset rule, the studies are already showing that 35h reset eeding 2 periods of 1-5 was causing more accidents then preventing them. Speed limiters are also very very dangerous as accidents happen when vehicles are moving at drastically different speeds, out west where cars can go 80+ MPH and trucks are going 60-62 makes the trucks a very very big hazzard on the road to the 4 wheelers as most 4 wheelers have basically no training in how to drive and then they are going 20+mph faster then a 40 ton wall in their way and them dodging the truck can cause accidents.

BTW Brett i do see the wage thing getting passed as its a rider on the transportation budget, but in reality it will not change much as getting 7.35 per hour while on duty not driving is more then nothing but still far less then you earn when you drive for that hour.

There are so many things looming on the herizon, for instance i learned that one of the driving forces behind SWFIT putting in "Drivecam" is that it is only costing swift 38 bucks per truck to install them the government is picking up the rest of the tab so they can use Swift as one of 3 companies as a test bed to see if it reduces accidents so they can use it as leverage to mandate cams in all big trucks.

One thing i would like to see them so is ake a standard for ouw mileage pay is done. Zip code to Zip code miles needs to be scrapped as that pretty much always shorts the driver on miles. However at the same time you cannot do hub miles as drivers will take the longest way possible to milk the miles.

Swift does zip code to zip code mileage, you often lose 10-20% of the miles because of that especially out west where zip codes are massive. I have lost thousands of miles with swift based on that. Just yesterday i had to go 59 miles from a deliver to my next shiper and was payed for only going 1 mile simply because it was on opposite ends of the zip code.

IMO they need to do address to address mileage based off of a set route which is easy enough to generate. I think that would do more to help drivers out then the get payed hourly for on duty not driving time and mileage for drive time. Like i said befor getting min wage for on duty time would not make me use any more on duty time then i do now as it would still cost me money to be on duty not driving.

One thing i would like to see them so is ake a standard for ouw mileage pay is done. Zip code to Zip code miles needs to be scrapped as that pretty much always shorts the driver on miles. However at the same time you cannot do hub miles as drivers will take the longest way possible to milk the miles.

Swift does zip code to zip code mileage, you often lose 10-20% of the miles because of that especially out west where zip codes are massive. I have lost thousands of miles with swift based on that. Just yesterday i had to go 59 miles from a deliver to my next shiper and was payed for only going 1 mile simply because it was on opposite ends of the zip code.

IMO they need to do address to address mileage based off of a set route which is easy enough to generate. I think that would do more to help drivers out then the get payed hourly for on duty not driving time and mileage for drive time. Like i said befor getting min wage for on duty time would not make me use any more on duty time then i do now as it would still cost me money to be on duty not driving.

I have to disagree with this. Sure you might get shorted some of the time, but overall I think it would tend to balance out. If you go to a drop that is 10 miles past the zip code mileage, but your next pick up keeps you going in the same direction, you will gain those 10 miles back.

I have to disagree with this. Sure you might get shorted some of the time, but overall I think it would tend to balance out. If you go to a drop that is 10 miles past the zip code mileage, but your next pick up keeps you going in the same direction, you will gain those 10 miles back.

No, because your mileage for the next trip would start at the far end of the zip code. So you're gonna drive another , say, ten free miles in that direction. Drivers lose EVERY time with these mileage arrangements. That's their purpose.

The whole thing with all of this is that pricing rolls up hill. Companies pay drivers more they charge more. Shippers add that cost into the product. So now that you are making all this money you are paying it all out in added cost of goods that you buy every day.

I meant to say that there are unintended consequences that people do not think of. Such as the 34 hour restart with thousands of trucks hitting the road at 5 am.