It’s Time To Pay Drivers By The Hour
Dear Editor:
I was reading an article in Truck West about computer logs. My husband and I have been driving team for about 16 years and that damned log book is pain in the kilt. But after reading that article I agree that it is a good idea to have on-board computer logs, providing that the carrier pays the drivers $15 an hour from the time the drivers leave the terminal until that driver gets back to his or her home terminal.
That way we can only drive six or seven hours a day if we so desire and still get a good pay. The miles system as it is now is what’s obsolete -not the log book. And since that article came from Ontario, I can just imagine the guy at MacKinnon Transport wanting that. Is he willing to pay his drivers by the hour? Of course not. Get a survey going around and ask drivers if they would like to be paid per hour from start to finish. You would see an approval rate of almost 100%.Then we as drivers would be paid what we’re worth.
M. Moreau Via e-mail
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We will never see hourly pay for OTR . Carriers set low rates yielding minimal profit . Carriers already lose revenue for fuel used sitting in traffic or slow driving in bad weather . Shippers pay by the mile and an hourly rate would be impossible to calculate .
But $15 an hour ? Not likely . With a surplus of applicants carriers could offer $8 or $9 and thousands of desperate CDL mill graduates would gladly take it .
Another issue is detention pay . If you don’t get it you are working for the wrong carrier . I really doubt some carriers could get away with charging detention pay if they all didn’t . Carriers not paying drivers detention pay are likely just keeping more for themselves .
But here’s another reason carriers won’t pay hourly . I worked for a small private carrier that paid hourly and only ran 5 days a week so they were subject to the 60 hours in 7 days limit. Although most drivers averaged 55 hours a week a few drivers were exceeding the 60 .
To solve the problem the carrier went back the past year averaging pays and came up with a per mile rate with stop pay that would give drivers the same earnings . Drivers logging off duty for lunch breaks would keep drivers under 60 hours .
80% of the drivers saw no real change in the pay which was ending up being the same as the 55 hour average . 10% of the drivers that had been accomplishing the same work in less than 55 hours now earned more . The other 10% that were the ones exceeding 60 hours were not happy as their earnings dropped . Interesting enough though these drivers were no longer needing near 60 hours to accomplish the same work .
That clearly demonstrates when drivers are paid by the hour a certain percentage will take longer than necessary to do the work to increase their earnings .
OTR always has been and always will be paid by the mile . If you want to be paid hourly take a job that pays hourly .