Walmart Truckers Score $100 Million Lost Wages Victory In Court

Wow!

Put a silly judge, a bunch of whiney truck drivers, and a slick talking lawyer together and look at the disastrous results.

Typical thinking in the trenches of this industry, truckers stand up and fight for what they are worth and everyone else try to bring them down.

You know what the next obvious step is, right? Walmart will eliminate their own fleet and let outside carriers do the hauling using drivers making $50,000 per year. That will eliminate all of the great paying $80,000 - $100,000 per year driving jobs available now. Outside carriers already do a lot of the work. It wouldn't be that hard to turn the rest over.

That's called ruining a good thing. That's what happens when you let lawyers convince you you're being wronged even when you have one of the highest paying jobs with the best benefits anywhere in the country.

And then the big carriers are next. We may be witnessing the beginning of peace work pay death throws. Good riddence I say.

Now let the QQ begin. LoL...

Attila beat me to it... not understanding why you all begrudge other drivers wanting to be paid for all of the work they do...

I mostly shake my head because they are already well compensated for the work they do.

Attila beat me to it... not understanding why you all begrudge other drivers wanting to be paid for all of the work they do...

They are (or were) already making $80,000 - $100,000 a year with the best benefits you'll find anywhere, had simple job duties, drive beautiful equipment, and get home regularly. Like I said, this is the kind of stuff that gets the best paying jobs eliminated. If owning their own fleet and paying their drivers top wage becomes too much of a hassle they'll simply eliminate their high-paying private fleet and let the low-paying OTR fleets around the country bid on the work.

It's the same thing many of the unions did over the years. Even though they were way overpaid for their skill level and job duties, had the nicest benefits imaginable, and great job security they did nothing in the face of growing global competition to allow their companies to remain competitive so the companies either shutdown or moved out of the country. They never stopped pushing for more until they no longer had jobs.

So naturally a caveman would think, "Good for them! Get all the money you can get!" But of course that caveman is going to discover that when nothing is good enough to satisfy you then ironically you often wind up with exactly that - nothing.

It's not always about 'take all you can get'. In fact, it's rarely about 'take all you can get'. You have to be aware of your circumstances and the potential risk you're taking by constantly battling for more, especially when you're in a great position already and you decide to bite the hand that's feeding you. And trust me, at $80,000-$100,000 a year they weren't eating Ramen Noodles and Mac-n-cheese, but they might be soon.

Just to add to what Brett said here, read the first post again. They (the Walmart drivers) weren't agitating to be paid more for on-duty time or functions. They were claiming their off-duty time as a work function and demanding to be paid more for it. They already get paid to be hanging out in the drivers lounge, or relaxing in their bunk with a book or DVD, which is virtually unheard of across the rest of the industry, on top of having the highest salary among trucking fleets, but no, they want to be paid more for sleeping. Ludicrous.

I think driver leaders should get paid by the mile per each truck hes over. So if hes over 10 trucks he should get paid 5 cents per mile for each truck.

he should also be required to work around the clock. 8 hours straight then a half hour break then another 3 hours then he needs to go home and sleep and be back within 10 hours to do it again.

so on average the driver leader should would work about 13 hours a day but only get what his trucks produce at 4 cents per mile nothing more nothing less.

the more trucks you have the less you get paid per mile. the less trucks you have you get paid more per mile. we have to keep it at a rate where they only get paid roughly 50,000 a year. anything more and that would be just not right.

I also think that truck drivers should be paid for line 4. If we get "in trouble" for not Logging our pre-trip and post-trip, if we get "in trouble" for putting ourselves in the sleeper and slow rolling the dock because we dont want to take hours off the 70... then we should get paid for it.

If one company pays their drivers 70 cents a mile and one pays their drivers 30 cents a mile it doesnt matter they should pay an hourly rate for all time ON-DUTY.

I DONT think we should get paid for sleeping. But for the time spent at the dispatch window, the time spent at the scale house, the time spent on pre trips, the time spent detained... that should be paid.

OR all office workers get assigned trucks and they get 3 cents a mile per truck...

plus I know most of you guys dont live in California... 80,000 a year is not that much, and a trucker that grows up in compton shouldnt be forced to move to Alabama or North Carolina just because he became a trucker. (the average home in compton will run you about 1500 a month)

Attila beat me to it... not understanding why you all begrudge other drivers wanting to be paid for all of the work they do...

They are (or were) already making $80,000 - $100,000 a year with the best benefits you'll find anywhere, had simple job duties, drive beautiful equipment, and get home regularly. Like I said, this is the kind of stuff that gets the best paying jobs eliminated. If owning their own fleet and paying their drivers top wage becomes too much of a hassle they'll simply eliminate their high-paying private fleet and let the low-paying OTR fleets around the country bid on the work.

It's the same thing many of the unions did over the years. Even though they were way overpaid for their skill level and job duties, had the nicest benefits imaginable, and great job security they did nothing in the face of growing global competition to allow their companies to remain competitive so the companies either shutdown or moved out of the country. They never stopped pushing for more until they no longer had jobs.

So naturally a caveman would think, "Good for them! Get all the money you can get!" But of course that caveman is going to discover that when nothing is good enough to satisfy you then ironically you often wind up with exactly that - nothing.

It's not always about 'take all you can get'. In fact, it's rarely about 'take all you can get'. You have to be aware of your circumstances and the potential risk you're taking by constantly battling for more, especially when you're in a great position already and you decide to bite the hand that's feeding you. And trust me, at $80,000-$100,000 a year they weren't eating Ramen Noodles and Mac-n-cheese, but they might be soon.

Brett I work for Walmart on a weekly basis and have been thinking they are digging themselves a hole for awhile. I don't really care for them much TBH. If it takes a bunch of whiney, spoiled, overpaid (who can afford lawyers) truckers to bring up this big problem in the industry to the mainstream, then so be it. The mere thought of working 80 hrs a week and only getting paid for 40 would **** off every American except them poor hard working truckers. Only a caveman would fail to see this as a possible hope for they rest of us.

Your premise about unions destroying America is BS. There is no proof of that. Did they add to the problem? Yep but they were just one piece of the puzzle. Majority rule American citizens of the time, corporations, government and unions sold us out. Again only a caveman would see one piece of the puzzle, not the whole picture.

There is legislation that has support where piece work pay is going to be outlawed in the financial sector. If that passes it's just a matter of time before it hits this industry. Coming up on my 1 year out here and have had a lot to think about. The biguest problem I see with trucking from a truckers point of view is piece work pay. It needs to be looked at seriously and used only as a bonus system, not a base.

Attila beat me to it... not understanding why you all begrudge other drivers wanting to be paid for all of the work they do...

They are paid for all of the work they do, to the tune of $80,000 average. Since when is sleeping "work?"