ABF | Ue Back To 4-10’s

Same here, brother. God forbid they hire more workers to take the heat off. For the guys that wanted OT? Have at it. Me? Nope. My last 5 years I never worked so physically hard and long in my life. I’m healing, though. Retirement is helping.
I break & hook more sets then our road guy, and I run the city. We’re the only ltl outfit in my area that does this all the others have the manpower to get the job done.... Don’t hire more guys beat the ::shit:: out of the ones you have. This was a good company until about 8 years ago....
 
I break & hook more sets then our road guy, and I run the city. We’re the only ltl outfit in my area that does this all the others have the manpower to get the job done.... Don’t hire more guys beat the :::shit::: out of the ones you have. This was a good company until about 8 years ago....
Oh yeah. Triples for me a couple times a week...doubles at least. The other freight guys? They’d send two to three guys to cover the same territory. It was demoralizing.
 
When I was steward, I had raised the issue about working “consistently more than 10 hours a Day” as per the contract. I was thinking of the safety issue of having a guy pushing almost 60 hours a week.

At that time, we had only one UE run,.......and the guy running it was highly incensed that I was going to cut his potential “gravy train” when the company switched to 5-8’s from 4-10’s....by questioning the excessive overtime..

I reminded him that, whichever condition we accepted,.......the UE bid.....WHOEVER was on it,.....would be jammed down our collective throats.....and that many guys preferred time with their families, instead of about 19 hours of.....mandatory overtime every week.

The matter came to a head the week he took vacation, and the bottom seniority man was forced onto the UE bid,........as per contract......and worked four 14 hour days.

He refused to go out Friday, the fifth day of the bid........he was almost out of hours anyway......UE is on the city board....60 hours a week max...

Company was forced to use line haul to cover......and wanted to fire the guy for a “deliberate work slowdown”......

However, it was proved that the guy who held the UE bid.......routinely had 14 hour days.......when the bid was 4-10’s....
For some reason,......when the bid went to 5-8’s.......he only had 12 hour days.......for the same Dayton turn! Sonofagun!

Company dropped talk of firing bottom man forced on UE,.......and always used linehaul on Friday, anytime he took vacation week, and the company forced bottom man to cover UE bid.
I raised the same issue at my barn. I told my brother on the ue run at the time to fight it, that it would suck working Friday night's all summer. He didn't fight it, he told me it was great because of all the money he was going to make. Last summer he got sick of the overtime and took a lot of fridays off. Then when we bid he got off it. Junior man got stuck on it The junior man is very happy it is going back to four days.
 
I raised the same issue at my barn. I told my brother on the ue run at the time to fight it, that it would suck working Friday night's all summer. He didn't fight it, he told me it was great because of all the money he was going to make. Last summer he got sick of the overtime and took a lot of fridays off. Then when we bid he got off it. Junior man got stuck on it The junior man is very happy it is going back to four days.
This 4-10’s thing, IMO, isn’t a bad idea. Running the UE takes a special breed of person. Some love it, some hate it. Such is life. It boils down to what you like. Being the low man at the time the current guy dropped his UE bid, I was forced onto it. I was in my 50’s at the time, and wasn’t the slightest bit amused, or prepared physically to tackle that position. Thankfully, it wasn’t for very long.
 
Same here, brother. God forbid they hire more workers to take the heat off. For the guys that wanted OT? Have at it. Me? Nope. My last 5 years I never worked so physically hard and long in my life. I’m healing, though. Retirement is helping.
I can honestly say for the first time in my life that a job was too much for me to handle physically. I had to get out of there.
 
I raised the same issue at my barn. I told my brother on the ue run at the time to fight it, that it would suck working Friday night's all summer. He didn't fight it, he told me it was great because of all the money he was going to make. Last summer he got sick of the overtime and took a lot of fridays off. Then when we bid he got off it. Junior man got stuck on it The junior man is very happy it is going back to four days.

This 4-10’s thing, IMO, isn’t a bad idea. Running the UE takes a special breed of person. Some love it, some hate it. Such is life. It boils down to what you like. Being the low man at the time the current guy dropped his UE bid, I was forced onto it. I was in my 50’s at the time, and wasn’t the slightest bit amused, or prepared physically to tackle that position. Thankfully, it wasn’t for very long.


Exactly my point. Every terminal has guys who are quite happy to spend their entire life...working.....60 hours isn't enough. The UE guy at my terminal complained that he should be able to use the 70 hour/8 day log,...instead of the 60 hour/7 day log....
We nipped that one in the bud quickly......

Then,...he wanted to see if he could use the 34 hour re-start to take off a Wednesday, and run road runs on the weekend. We were trying to use extra road work to make up time for bottom-of-the-list guys who did not get 40 hours that week....

We..."nipped" that one, too......

And,....when I tried to explain to him, during the 5/8 change,....that conditions accepted would...go with the BID,...not the GUY.....
....he did not care......

The UE provision forcing the bottom man to cover the bid.....is a very dangerous provision, and could undermine barn working conditions.....I've seen it create division......between top of the board, and bottom of the board.....

Seniority,..is NOT rank.......everyone pays the same amount of dues money.....

Needless to say,....the guy who wanted every hour of overtime he could get,...and bid the UE position purely for the money....
.....was on his second marriage, and deeply in debt for his various..."toys"..that he had no time to use....
 
Exactly my point. Every terminal has guys who are quite happy to spend their entire life...working.....60 hours isn't enough. The UE guy at my terminal complained that he should be able to use the 70 hour/8 day log,...instead of the 60 hour/7 day log....
We nipped that one in the bud quickly......

Then,...he wanted to see if he could use the 34 hour re-start to take off a Wednesday, and run road runs on the weekend. We were trying to use extra road work to make up time for bottom-of-the-list guys who did not get 40 hours that week....

We..."nipped" that one, too......

And,....when I tried to explain to him, during the 5/8 change,....that conditions accepted would...go with the BID,...not the GUY.....
....he did not care......

The UE provision forcing the bottom man to cover the bid.....is a very dangerous provision, and could undermine barn working conditions.....I've seen it create division......between top of the board, and bottom of the board.....

Seniority,..is NOT rank.......everyone pays the same amount of dues money.....

Needless to say,....the guy who wanted every hour of overtime he could get,...and bid the UE position purely for the money....
.....was on his second marriage, and deeply in debt for his various..."toys"..that he had no time to use....
I’ve found the ‘hopelessly in debt’ the most popular reason for working all those hours. Sad, really...but choices have consequences. You make a good point, canary....about being so far in debt to PAY for the toys they buy, then have no time to enjoy them because they’ve gotta work extra hours. A viscous circle, indeed....but it’s not rocket science.
 
I can honestly say for the first time in my life that a job was too much for me to handle physically. I had to get out of there.
Yep! That was about 50% of the reason I retired when I did. The other 50% was the almost-daily horn-locking with our ‘shop steward’ (in name only) about repeated seniority and other blatant contract violations. Violations that our ‘Kum-By-Yah’ TM was to docile to address. It just got to where it wasn’t worth it anymore.

Anyway, I couldn’t be happier with our new life...hope you are too!
 
Yep! That was about 50% of the reason I retired when I did. The other 50% was the almost-daily horn-locking with our ‘shop steward’ (in name only) about repeated seniority and other blatant contract violations. Violations that our ‘Kum-By-Yah’ TM was to docile to address. It just got to where it wasn’t worth it anymore.

Anyway, I couldn’t be happier with our new life...hope you are too!
I am. If the universe is willing, I will retire from my new company.
 
We could probably all use a.....sterling recommendation to the Universe.........

Now that ABF is going back to 4/10's,.....I wonder if the UE bids will still post about 56 hours a week....4 - 14 hour days...

In spite of the fact that....under 5/8's,....guys were running the same runs in......no more than 12 hours.....5 - 12's are 60 hours

Watch for the company to question why the runs are now.....2 hours longer. We are our own worst enemy sometimes.......
 
We could probably all use a.....sterling recommendation to the Universe.........

Now that ABF is going back to 4/10's,.....I wonder if the UE bids will still post about 56 hours a week....4 - 14 hour days...

In spite of the fact that....under 5/8's,....guys were running the same runs in......no more than 12 hours.....5 - 12's are 60 hours

Watch for the company to question why the runs are now.....2 hours longer. We are our own worst enemy sometimes.......
I thought about that pending scenario as well. This is where the Excessive Overtime clause would be appropriate. We’re talking about DAILY overtime...not the 60/week.
 
I thought about that pending scenario as well. This is where the Excessive Overtime clause would be appropriate. We’re talking about DAILY overtime...not the 60/week.


True,.......very true. Going back to 4/10’s will definitely cut back on the overtime pay.

But......the contractual excessive overtime clause should still apply, whether you’re paid overtime or not.

A 12 hour work day is still two hours beyond the “consistently working more than 10 hours a Day” language in the contract......

A 4/10 bid should be tailored so you could get your work done in 10 hours......under normal conditions.........

I’ve always said that.....overtime is a penalty paid by your employer......for keeping your CDL license at risk longer than 8 hours........

In light of that......creating bids that are automatically 12 or 14 hour days........doesn’t serve the employee or his family......

And kind of shows how much profit the company is really making,.....if overtime pay factors into the bid creation.......
 
True,.......very true. Going back to 4/10’s will definitely cut back on the overtime pay.

But......the contractual excessive overtime clause should still apply, whether you’re paid overtime or not.

A 12 hour work day is still two hours beyond the “consistently working more than 10 hours a Day” language in the contract......

A 4/10 bid should be tailored so you could get your work done in 10 hours......under normal conditions.........

I’ve always said that.....overtime is a penalty paid by your employer......for keeping your CDL license at risk longer than 8 hours........

In light of that......creating bids that are automatically 12 or 14 hour days........doesn’t serve the employee or his family......

And kind of shows how much profit the company is really making,.....if overtime pay factors into the bid creation.......
There's just one problem with this line of thinking: ABF doesn't profit. Only Judy's non-union companies make money.
 
Not to get off track but I haven’t seen a panther truck on the road in a while....


There's a Panther refrigerated trailer sitting in a field a mile north of the town where I live...Hasn't moved in more than a week.

Could Panther be having a...problem hiring quality O/O's? I know that just after the Panther purchase, ..they tried to use our terminal to transfer and drop freight.

We immediately "explained"...no non-Union freight handlers on the premises, unless they wait in the break room.......

And then a couple of one-ton Panther panel vans wanted our dock crew to....overload their panel vans with towmotor freight from one to another. We refused to do anything ...illegal.....Panther drivers were inscensed,..Called Fort Smith......

They left without being overloaded,....sent in a third van for excess freight.........And after that incident,....our terminal was never asked to....transfer Panther freight again..

But I got to say,........as far as "professionalism" went,.......the yobboes they sent in here, were distinctly not...impressive...

And certainly not O/O businessmen....Yee-hah, fly-by-night, rate-cutting cowboys,...in My Opinion.........
 
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