About a year ago, we were all running out of hours, the supervisors were forced to take out routes, and the warehouse supervisors were forced to load the trailers as well. They fire people and forget it's gonna get busy, same thing happened this year.
So last year about this time on a Friday, we all got a memo in our mailboxes saying we are now an 8 day 70 hour operation. I had 55 hours, thought I'd have an early day, then suddenly I had 15 hours left. They about had a riot on their hands when they did that. The memo stated that it wasn't their intention to work us 70 hours per week, just when unforeseen circumstances arose. B.S. Almost all of us have been working more than 60 hours since then. I'm usually between 65 and 70. Every Friday we get an e-mail asking for volunteers to work on Saturday. One of the lower guys was forced in for a 10 hour route last Saturday with only 8 hours left, this week he has 5 hours left and they are making him work again tomorrow.
It's fine to drive/be on duty 70 hours in five days, but this kind of work, it's not so good. The senior driver are waiting for someone else to get seriously injured or killed. It's hard work, I may have sixteen to eighteen thousand pounds on my trailer, but I have to lift twenty to twenty five thousand lbs because I can't find the product, and I have to move everything out of the way, lifting many cases two or three times.
Do the math, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. 168 hours per week. The average adult needs 8-10 hours of sleep, lets say 8, 8x7 is 56 hours, leaving 112 hours minus 70 for work, 42 hours. 16 waking hours on Saturday and Sunday (a good portion of which is taken up by things my wife needs me to do), 10 hours left during the week. I have a half hour commute (some drivers have an hour or more drive home), leaving 5 hours to spend with my wife (if she is home) during the week. But wait, I have to get undressed and take a shower, pack my lunch make/eat dinner, then in the morning I have to make breakfast, get dressed, maybe comb my hair. It's completely unbalanced and something has got to give. I really need some time to unwind and relax, so it gets borrowed from the sandman. I usually don't get a chance to get caught up on the weekends, there are too many things to get done, and I sure won't get them done during the week. I talk to some of the other drivers, a lot of us, especially the ones with kids, are averaging about 5 hours of sleep per night, 5x7 is 35 hours of sleep per week. I think it is preposterous that I spend twice as much time working as I do sleeping, on the other hand, I must be a bad a$$ mother _____.
When I was over the road, ten hours was plenty of time, there's no commute, no feeding the dog, no making dinner, no mowing the lawn, no reading the mail. You pull into the truck stop and park, you can have your dinner in a half hour or so, by then there was a shower open if you needed one, back in your cab, plan your route, grab 7 or 8 hours, get a coffee and you're gone. The same ten hours isn't nearly enough for a local driver who's done a little bit more than sit on his rump all day.
Yeah, we get two (or three) breaks and a lunch, but show it to me on the manifest. Some drivers take them, then they have to explain why they were behind on their route. One of the shop stewards tells me I'm cheating myself out of 2.5 hours of overtime if I don't take my breaks. They're gonna run me to 70 hours regardless, I make a bit more throwing cases with that same 2.5 hours on a Friday than I do just sitting for a half hour a day. I just want to get it done and go home.
We're on ABC, I don't see how they can touch that before 2013 when the contract is up. The only time we're hourly is if we don't have a route, or when we go to help someone.
There was an incentive program in the warehouse, it was a nightmare. The people who don't know how to select and load trailers were then trying to do it faster, and they didn't care, they just wanted the the incentive. So they were essentially giving those guys a bonus for screwing things up worse, as long as it was done fast. We can't be disciplined for falling behind, unless there is a new contract, there are just too many factors. A driver incentive program here would only work for a select few favorites. I don't care about a bonus, I make enough as it is, as long as the DIP doesn't touch what I'm already making I'm okay with that. We needlessly bust our a$$es for what we get over here and things will turn real bad if they have any ideas about paying us less.
