[quote="TomB985"]

So, with that low of a margin, how can the average carrier AFFORD to pay drivers by the hour, when production isn't optimal? If that were the case, with OTR rates being what they are, every time a traffic jam happened, the companies would lose a fortune...and eventually go out of business! Now, all the b!tching drivers complianing about thier paycheck are on unemployment.quote]

There is such a thing as rotten Drivers and they deserve to be fired.

Beyond that, nearly every inefficiency I've encountered has been due to poor management, poor planning, poor dispatch or equipment deficiencies, all of which are beyond my control.

Weather? It's applied equally. Traffic jam? Ditto.

My favorite inefficiency: Night/weekend dispatchers with no access to planning screens and no authority to move an idle(ing) truck.
EXAMPLE: I can't begin to enumerate the times I have sat waiting for a plan only to learn the p/u was scheduled 10 hours ago and I've been sitting for 14. So, not only have I waited for the load information, now at the shipper, I get pushed to the back of the line because I didn't make the appointed hour.

My second favorite recurring inefficiency: Empty trailers. Everyone loves drop and hook, right? Except when there is no hook. Every single one of our trailers is equipped to talk to the Qualcomm. The only thing it knows how to say is "This is where I was dropped." My company knows where the closest trailer is but they don't know whether or not it's empty. Now it's up to me to go out and bird dog them . . on the house!

These problems occur for thousands of drivers, every single day. Read the threads on here. The biggest insult is that every one in the chain of command or our "Circle of Service" gets paid . . EXCEPT ME. Completely beyond my control and I'm the only one to suffer the economic consequences. Our employers enjoy a tremendous economic benefit, at our expense, under the existing rules.

The solution? Get out of trucking you whiner? No. The freight has to move and with all the whiners gone . .

The law has to change. CPM/PPM has to go. Some would like to see hourly pay, I would like to see a day rate. Pay me by the day for every day or part thereof that I'm out. Be good employers, be good managers and keep my truck moving. You'd better or it's going to cost you!

The law needs to be changed because it needs to be applied across the board as to effect all carriers equally. The truly efficient companies will prosper and the POS losers will go under. That's business, my friend.

Remember: The rising tide floats all boats. Say goodbye to artificially low freight rates and you shine a new light on the future and fortunes of owner operators.

 

I recall you took a nasty spill and banged up your leg pretty bad . . any chance you might have bumped your head, too?

Piece work is against the law in this Country in every single industry except one. Care to take a guess?

Piece work was outlawed and replaced with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1936. Truck Drivers were exempted from the overtime provision of the Act. Piece work was eliminated because workers were forced to pay the consequences of ruthless and/or inefficient management. Truck Drivers were exempted due to the inability of management to exercise control over their far flung employees. The fear was that the unsupervisable Drivers would drive to the ends of the earth and never rest if it meant making more money. You know this business, you know the technology, you read the posts here and you know as well as anyone that is simply no longer the case.

Managers set up their systems and managers impliment the controls. When the systems and controls fail, who should pay?

I agree that rotten Drivers should be canned. I also think good Drivers should have incentives. But when a good Driver can't drive because some inept manager can't get his head out of his rearend, I don't think I should be forced to take the rap.

You run your own show and I applaud you for that, especially since it sounds like you run a pretty good show. At the end of the day, you get to say how the check gets distributed and you get to call your cut whatever you want . . CPM/PPM . . hourly rate . . daily rate . . whatever you call it, you likely feel sufficiently compensated and you probably feel as though you ran your day in the most efficient manner you can.

If you order repairs, they have to be paid for. You buy fuel, it has to be paid for. You say screw it, I'm going on vacation, it has to be paid for. If you have employees, they have to be paid NO MATTER HOW EFFICIENTLY OR INEFFICIENTLY they perform on your behalf. Unless they happen to be the folks that make everything move.

At the end of my day, I have to confront the fact that no matter how efficiently I ran my day, as often as not, my compensation is predicated on the efficiencies of others over whom I excersize no authority or control.

Today, I ran 660 beautiful and uneventful miles. Man! Talk about efficiency! I'm on the tail end of a great 2200+ mile load. I got a message yesterday that there's a conflict with the delivery appointment as in, it's scheduled for tomorrow morning and I can't legally be there until late tomorrow afternoon . . I'm on plan and on schedule but somebody else isn't and I haven't heard a word since. It's a beautiful summer weekend! My support network is . . indisposed.

The shipper has already been paid, the CSR, my managers and the dispatcher will all be paid . . the bill states the freight is prepaid so the company is covered. But something tells me that I'm going to be sitting while this gets sorted out and that may take some time . . my time. I'll be off the board; unpaid and unavailable for pay. Somebody else screwed this up and I'm going to pay. I don't own the company, G-man . . tell me why it's me who has to pay . .

I was kidding about the head bump. You're an asset to the board and I, for one, have never made fun of your avatar.

 

First of all it takes a different breed to want to do OTR. You have to enjoy it. Then the issue of pay has to be agreed on. As others have stated the problem with performance based pay is that so many other factors are out of the drivers control but yet he/she pays the price. I'm not your "partner" in business. You enjoy the reward and you suffer the risk. I'm your "employee" and all I can offer you is my time. For this I want compensation. If I wanted a risk/reward situation I would start my own business. I love my union job. I work hard and so do my coworkers. And when my work is done I go home and I dont think about work until its time to go back in. I enjoy my family time, my home, weekends off, holidays off, etc. etc. But thats just me. We're all free to do what ever type of work we want. Thats the beautiful thing about America!

 

Why not give it a try? Performance based pay sounds good to me! Maybe we would all be making more that way.

 

Reading from http://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=192553 Another site is http://www.laborlawtalk.com/archive/...php/t-169.html Also at http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/i...alhomework.htm where the DofL defines it as Industrial Homework/Piecework

kc0iv

 

Thank you for reinforcing my earlier post . . AT LEAST MINIMUM WAGE!

How many times I have posted that on this and other forums?

The only obligation an employer has to a Driver is MINIMUM WAGE. If an investigator from the Department of Labor stops by to audit the books, he won't be interested in how many miles everyone is running and he won't be comparing it to the number of miles reported to have been driven. He is going to compare the hours REPORTED to the wages paid and as long as it adds up to at least minimum wage he'll be one happy investigator.

Using your example, I hire your company to tile my new kitchen. We agree on a time and a price. You go out to by the tile and tell your employee to meet at my house at the agreed upon hour. Your employee shows up on time. You, on the other hand, slipped on a banana peel, fell down an elevator shaft and the box of tiles lands on your head.

You show up 3 hours late, swathed in bandages and with no tiles. You apoligise to your employee and tell him to report back again tomorrow and we'll try it again. Your employee sticks out his hand and says "So sorry to hear of your misfortune and that will be $24.00, please." (WA state minimum is 8 something) You declare "My friend! You didn't lay tile one! He whips out his cellphone with the DOL on speed dial . . " You owe him the money. There is no such thing as piece work.

 

ok something i hear about otr trucking that i dont really understand and i hear the OTR bashers talk about it all the time.. Detention Pay and Layover Pay.. How in the hell can you make less for sitting in one spot all day then sitting in a spot for 15 to 20 hours?? i don't understand that... For example i think roehl's is $10 for every 30 min's after 2 hours but you get $70 dollars for staying at that spot for more than 24 hours?? doesn't make sense.. albeit i'm not a trucker yet and haven't been in the industry like you guys have i just don't understand that setup... some one care to explain.. i might have something wrong

 

Ah, to be young again. Hawk, one of the OTR types can best explain this burn job.

 

[quote="kc0iv"]Piece work has been doing well for many decades. When I worked piece work I was paid minimum wage and could earn more based upon my personal production. This was in the late 1960's. I ALWAYS earned more because I worked harder. There were some who only did the minimum so they only earned minimum wage.

 

[quote="GMAN"]
You should move to China and work cleaning shrimp...I think you could make millions. 1 penny a pound..lol