With so many terminals ready to negotiate I think it would be a great idea for all of us to get together and start to formulate some ideas on proposals for our new contracts. We've had our share of bashing the Indy deal, now it's our time to do it.
I honestly don't know to what extent we (the drivers) will be involved, but it's for us, so we better have as much say as anyone else.
What did you like about the Indy deal and what didn't you like? Let's share ideas and opinions in this thread. Then we can all use this information during our local negotiations. I will kick it off with some ideas in the next post.
Great post. I was going to start this one myself.
Here are some random ideas to kick this off.
-I wonder to what extent local cost of living adjustments will matter. If you live in a larger city or a tax haven, you might consider this.
-Indy had trouble with the pay rate for road drivers with the company not wanting to pay the full rate for certain jobs that were performed. Clearer language will be needed.
-Something to consider is whether or not road drivers should or could be paid hourly. Doing the math, it comes out very close with the advantage being safety. There will be no incentive to driving 15 over the speed limit in Illinois as many do. Also in winter weather driving conditions, you will be properly paid for your time.
-Vacation for road drivers is currently being paid as your average whereas city drivers are paid just eight hours. That should be fixed so that all are paid their average. Also, holidays and personal days should as well.
-In the Indy deal, the limit on accidents is three per nine months, not twelve. That will be very important for some.
-One I'm particularly fond of is that all road runs (who took what the previous night) needs to be posted every day. That way we know that all drivers were given what they should have been and we don't have to fake that we really give a crap how everyone is doing when all we're calling for is to find out what they're running.
-Contractors. We cannot eliminate them, but good language will limit their use. I don't like the way it's set up where they seem to think they can use them when there isn't freight coming back. Right now, in Milwaukee, we load direct trailers for Dallas, but Dallas doesn't load direct loads for Milwaukee, so they send the Dallas freight with owner operators. But there is freight coming back, they just don't load it for a direct run. My point is it can be twisted. I like the idea that all company drivers must be working before the contractors pull loads. Also, and this is huge, there must be language that limits their use to a certain percentage. Otherwise, they'll never hire another road driver. We go first and they can only run a certain percentage with contractors.
-I would go into the negotiations with the expectation that we get to keep the matching 401k. Losing it shouldn't be a given. What are we going to get in return? What did Indy get?
I will add more later. I'm looking forward to hearing what ideas you have in the works for your negotiations.