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ABF | 8 hour work calls at hotel

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arkbestman

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What do other road men think about being called on 8 hours when the law says a 10 hour break in required ? By the time u wait on the van or bobtail to the hotel get something to eat shower ect ect the phone is ringing to soon gotta be illegal
 
I was under the impression that the law was changed from 8 off to 10 off because of what you are talking about. You should be able to get close to 8 hrs of sleep with ten off and all of your running back and forth. I doubt that the company is breaking the law on this. Were you around when it was only 8 off?
 
You can request a 10 for 12 call too as far as I know with no repercussions other than you lose your spot with a return load. They never changed the work calls when the government changed to the 10 hour rule.
 
I was hired in 06 after the gov changed the break from 8 to 10 just seems to me not enough rest sometimes and they wonder why we get fatigued
 
I wish they could get back to 10hrs turnaround again. We are laying 16-22hrs in Portland/ Seattle/Tacoma while they load the UE and HVLP and rail freight before they even begin to worry about loading the eastbound road drivers back out. The only time they turn on 10hrs is on the weekends when they are shut down and all the freight is pre- loaded.
 
What happens is the bids keep running later and later until they finally wind up meeting their bids on the way home, so they either go on the extra board or stay home their last trip of the week. Which makes the layover pay suck by comparison. I sleep 6-8 hrs when I get in and spend the next 8hrs staring at the ceiling wondering when they will call, which means you're exhausted again when they finally do call. The layover pay just doesn't compensate. I would rather run on 10 and plan my rest accordingly. The rail is killing us out here. We have good inbound freight, but the rail sucks up a lot of the outbound. Yeah, they can only rail so much according to the contract, but it can all be in the west if they choose. Then there are the triples in the summer. They take a lot of the work also. Every 2 sets of triples takes out a set of doubles, and the loss of work for a driver. In Portland, you lay longer while they are loading that 3rd trailer in the summer. And if you are 4th or 5th in line, you better get comfortable, becuz you are going to be there a spell....
 
These are all end-of-line terminals. We don't get any trucks in from Guam or Hawaii to help take up the slack going back home. We're in hog heaven if we get offered a weekend run and can run- on- rest.
 
Contract still calls for work calls on 8 for 10. DOT ruling of 10 hours off between shifts doesn't necessarily mean 10 hours of sleep. Argument is that you would take personal phone calls during your 10 hour "rest" period. Once your 10 hours is up though, FMCSA 395.2 requires that all hours waiting for dispatch,.....even non-compensated ones.....should be logged as "on duty". How many guys do that?
 
canaryinthemine said:
Contract still calls for work calls on 8 for 10. DOT ruling of 10 hours off between shifts doesn't necessarily mean 10 hours of sleep. Argument is that you would take personal phone calls during your 10 hour "rest" period. Once your 10 hours is up though, FMCSA 395.2 requires that all hours waiting for dispatch,.....even non-compensated ones.....should be logged as "on duty". How many guys do that?
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I have to admit I didn't know about that one when I was on the road. that sure wasn't on the agenda when I was shown how to log my time
 
canaryinthemine said:
Contract still calls for work calls on 8 for 10. DOT ruling of 10 hours off between shifts doesn't necessarily mean 10 hours of sleep. Argument is that you would take personal phone calls during your 10 hour "rest" period. Once your 10 hours is up though, FMCSA 395.2 requires that all hours waiting for dispatch,.....even non-compensated ones.....should be logged as "on duty". How many guys do that?
Click to expand...

Brother Canary, that does not apply because you are technically not waiting on a load when you are on layover at the motel. The companies argument is that you are on your free-time because you can do almost anything you want. That argument has been made several times in the southern conference with no success. But the other side of the coin has succeeded. The argument is that you waited so long at the motel you are not sufficiently rested to leave. About 10 years ago Roy Tilligure (safety person in Winston 051) and I went nose to nose over this issue. I ended up taking an additional 8hrs off (without layover pay) and getting out on 36hrs or 40hrs (I don't remember how long I was at the motel but I know it was close to 48hrs). I was not written up but I did have to explain to Keith Burke (transportation manager in Atlanta) what happened.
 
Yes Brother, I know there , at times, has been a constant battle over abuse of rest times,.....especially on hog board dispatches. We were able to use that FMCSA language on our city board to keep dispatch from dangling guys all day, and then punishing them for missing a 2:00 P.M. work call,...when they were waiting since 6:00 A.M. You could almost hear the dispatcher sizzle when you informed him you were out of hours, and were no longer available to take his "hot" load. Not great for pay,.....but after a couple of days, the "hot" loads were materializing around 9:00-10:00 A.M.
 
Good deal brother. We had a driver, William (Bill) West, who tried that same thing a couple of years ago and the local would not support us. What Bill (one of the new ATA captains) wanted was for drivers sitting at home for over 8hrs, and not being called, to be able to mark off for 8hrs in order to be rested. The transportation manager and the local agreed that this would be a seniority violation because drivers would be using this MOU (memorandum of understanding) to slide call times. They stated that drivers who were on the 6am call time, who did not want to be on the 3pm or later call time, would simply claim fatigued and slide to the call time they wanted rather than take runs they did not want (drive all night). We argued that the company controlled when a driver got called for dispatch and that a driver did not need 24hrs off in order to be rested. The local agreed with the company and we can take 24hrs off to rest but that 24hrs is counted as ETO (earned time off) and we must start our work week over. Bill's argument was that 24hrs made a driver just as tired or more tired than if they only taken 8hrs off. The local refused to support us and agreed with the company.
 
Hah! Your Local officials should read the latest studies done on Circadian cycles, and how not having a sleep period that's roughly the same time every day directly impacts on your mental and physical health. Trucking is not covered by OSHA,......we're under the auspices of the Bureau of Motor Carriers,.....Consequentially, when anyone does a health study of workers , and how certain business practices affect them,.....the data is usually pulled from OSHA files, ......and trucking, as an occupation, is ignored. In 1992, or '93', the trucking industry, through the Bureau of Motor carriers, was forced,....kicking and screaming,....to provide statistics to the Dept. of Labor, on occupational deaths and injury in trucking for the first time. We blew every other occupation off the DOL's charts! Eight times as many truck drivers died in the line of duty as policemen and firemen combined. Trucking comprises 2% of the total employment population,.......14% of fatal occupational injuries occur in trucking. Since that time, the DOL has obfusticated the raw numbers of death by adding highway miles, so that "deaths per highway miles" appear to be going down,.....In raw numbers, they are NOT. Especially with all the "newbies"................Way back in the '80's,....the National Institute of Health did a sleep deprivation study using data pulled from OSHA files,....trucking was ignored,....They released their findings to the New England Journal of Medicine,.....and what they said was that if you did not get 7 to 8 hours of sleep the same schedule every night,....and if your sleep pattern fluctuated between sleeping during the day, and back to night,.....eventually, you'll drive yourself psychotic! At that time, Overdrive Magazine had a field day with their findings,....comparing log book regulations and company dispatch requirements to "normal" sleep patterns,.....and their conclusion was that by Government regulation,......everyone in the Trucking industry was psychotic!............So,....Where's Our Disability Check?......(....much chuckling...)......The National Institute of Health DROPPED the study!,..............And,....for 20 years you heard nothing about how sleep patterns affect health.....Right up to the "discovery" of sleep apnea,......and how they are discussing certain "industries" need to "require" medical regulations,...........so that the liability can be on the DRIVER,....and not the COMPANIES' dispatch procedures,.............Of Course......
 
Brother Canary, I think the union and the companies know how damaging this profession is the health of the employees but have determined that it is not “their problem.” And from their point of view, it is so much easier to tell drivers “if you don't like it; leave.” This solved their problem until they can't find employees to work for the companies. The solution to lack of employees is to hire outside carriers and temp employees. I look forward to finding out what the union and companies do when that no longer works!
 
I think that time is charging down on them now.......With a vengenance...... All the "short term" solutions of the past have run their course,....And they're wringing their hands about how the working public's perception of trucking as an occupation is very poor,........even though THEY are the ones who created that perception! Time to start throwing money at the "problem",.........another short term solution......
 
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