Razorblade
Omniscient
- Credits
- 636
And yet you never address my points. Where am I wrong? If you were running the5tolls trucking company, how would you do it?
Yellow | More LTL carriers may follow AAA Cooper to the altar, consultant says
- Thread starter Freightmaster1
- Start date
Razorblade
Omniscient
- Credits
- 636
You are never going to get it. Paying the road driver to do the work costs about half of what it costs to pay a "hookman".When deregulation hit most companies were union so of course it can be said that many union companies folded. Blade your go to example is always a road driver setting on his azz while a yardman does a break & hook. LH drivers came into my yard & did their paperwork while their set was being hooked. Seems like good use of time to me.
I am constantly accused of the " I got mine, screw you" mentality. When trucking was regulated and profits were guaranteed, the old rules worked. It's not 1980 anymore. Companies can no longer tell the government that they need higher rates because of higher labor costs. The primary job of the union is job security. Job security only exists when a company is productive and profitable.
Last edited:
If someone disagrees with you they are "never going to get it" in your opinion' Out here in the west if a LH does any work in the yard he is paid by the hour the going rate for heavy duty work in that local supplement. If that LH is getting paid the same as Me how is that half as much? I'm going to get him turned in half the time he could do it himself which is actually saving the company money. You seem to make it out as we are a bunch of lazy slow bastards "Razorblade". Is the blade a little dull? If LH comes into a terminal & it's dark he does the work with our pay scale. Our yards don't have people setting on their ass on the weekend waiting for LH. LH stands for line haul in case you didn't know. Buster brown might call them something else.
Address your points, if you had any original ideas I would be glad to address them. The ideas that Unions have negatives....heck yes. I don't own the company or have stock in it so I really don't give two hoots if it makes it hard on the company. I worry about me, I have a very easy job, my pay is lower than many of the guys but that doesn't bother me. I will go to work until they lock the gate. Then I will fill out applications and go to work for someone else. Valentines day of 1986 I called in from the cities to be informed that the first trucking company I ever worked for just locked the gates. My second job in trucking started a non union division and started screwing the Union guys every chance they got. As recently as 2009 the company I worked for which was Teamsters also and we had 6 months left on contract and they kicked us our the door and brought in a non union company to replace us. Each time I brush myself off and update my resume and go hold a steering wheel for someone else. So to sit here and worry if a driver or yard guy should to a switch....who cares! The gate is unlocked and there is money deposited in my checking account on Friday....I'm happy. I'll let you worry about all that other stuff. Now I want to get back to watching Clemson and Georgia.
Have a good Holiday!
You added on much to your original post. I'm retired & I didn't accuse you of a damn thing but I will agree companies & the union have to work together to make things productive. You seem to lay it all on the union side as it's all their fault. Not so. If you dislike the Teamsters so much why did you stay on a union job with buster brown. Just saying. Fed Ex ground does the same type of work. You just would not have been allowed on Smokestack's property. He's armed ya know.
Last edited:
Razorblade
Omniscient
- Credits
- 636
This is why you don't get it. You are correct, the drivers will be paid the hourly rate but the drivers have already earned their H&W and pension contributions. The drivers will not get any extra holiday, sick days or vacation days for doing the yard work. Eliminating the yard man eliminates all the costs except the hourly rate. Therefore, it costs half as much for the drivers to do the yard work as it does to pay you to do it.
Labor cost is total compensation divided by hours worked. For example, $800 for a five day week is $20 an hour with no benefits. Monday is the Labor Day paid holiday. The employee works four days and is paid $800. That is $25 an hour not $20.
No I get it that your just making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe you should have been a financial advisor to all these carriers & they wouldn't have gone broke. Once again you pick & choose what to answer & like a politician walk around questions saying alot but avoiding what you don't like. I'm old & tired so I guess your just too smart for me. I dealt with too many know it all *******'s in my day so I'm not interested to do it any longer. But please remember if that pension is too much for you you can send the excess to www.hookmancanusethedough.com
I have a nephew who retired from Ups a year ago. Complained about the union the whole time he worked there & bitched about buster brown. You ought to hear him brag about that Teamsters pension he started drawing at age 61 after 32 years at Ups. Unlike you he doesn't complain he's overpaid.
Last edited:
Sounds like you just want to eliminate jobs to bring about profits. Why not let LH load their own trailers, fuel themselves, dispatch themselves via computer & turn the tractors up so they can always run as fast as the posted speed limit. Gee kinda make all employees a jack of all positions & work them to death. We could regress to the point of the early 1900s where folks formed unions because of the way they were treated. Like Amazon does now to their employees. Dude you need a hobby, maybe fishing, Breezy has a boat you know,
It's called finding contentment in your life. Some find it, others never do.
Steward of the Rock
TB Veteran
- Credits
- 726
So you are saying that the road drivers should drop and hook their own trailers just to save the cost of benefits? Hell, why don't you just have them come in and unload/load their own trailers to knock the dock workers out of work to save the benefits cost on them as well. And while you are at it, let's make all the drivers diesel mechanics and electricians so they fix their own trucks and change their own tires and fix their own trailer lights. That way you can cut out the benefits cost of the shop employees too. They won't have any hours left to driver, but at least the company will save the cost of all those benefits. Genius idea there Einstein. I certainly hope Preston did not use any of your ideas back when you worked for them. If they did, I guess that would explain why they went out of business. Sorry Hookman. I did not see your post (#69) until after I had posted this.
That is complete nonsense. Ask UPS,ABF they pay it and still make money. If YRC is paying 25% pension and 15% less hr rate but still can't turn a profit then there's way more wrong then health benefits.
Razorblade
Omniscient
- Credits
- 636
Way to spin something I never said.
Drivers are qualified to do the drop and hooks. The clock is still running on hours while they sit and wait. YRC is in a hole, it's time to stop digging. The only way out is to increase productivity and efficiency. Rates are competitive and can't be raised. Yellow has no control over the cost of fuel, equipment and debt service. The only controllable expense is labor. Saving just a dollar a week on 26,000 employees is 1.3 million a year. How is YRC to become profitable and offer job security if they can't cut labor costs?
Steward of the Rock
TB Veteran
- Credits
- 726
YRC is in a hole because of very poor management. Not because of labor cost. Zollars put them in the hole by buying up companies at inflated prices with money that was borrowed. And in case you did not know it, there are plenty of drivers that are qualified to do dock work. In fact, a lot of them were dock and city guys before they became road drivers. Some were at one time Utility drivers. And I was not spinning anything. I was simply giving you an example of how ridiculous your idea was to do away with hostlers and let road drivers do that work. Like Hookman stated, the road drivers already do their own drop and hooks at dark terminals as there is no one there to drop and hook them. And like LTL1 stated in post #72, ABF, UPS (T-Force), and other freight companies, union and non-union use hostlers to drop and hook and are making money. If your idea was so good, don't you think the non-unions would have already done away with hostling jobs and had the road drivers drop and hook their own sets all of the time? A driver only has so many hours in a day to drive. They certainly do not need to waste driving hours and delay freight by dropping and hooking their own set every time. Especially when a qualified hostler can do it much quicker and already have their set ready to go for them when they arrive.
The only controllable expense is labor is not a true statement.
I work at a non-union company. I do my own switches and put my trailers to the doors or pull them off door as needed. We still have yard guys at every breakbulk. The logic from that guy doesn’t make any sense. A yard guy at a union company is definitely not a waste. They know the yard better than a foreign line haul driver ever will. They can turn a guy back out of yard before he even gets inside building most times. At a big terminal where we have yard guys at Old Dominion, most times it is drop and hook sometimes they need help and we end up doing it. Splitting sets and stringing sets is no big deal, but they know the yard and can do it before we even get inside with yard horse they are quicker for sure.
YRC doesn’t need to cut from labor. Their problem has always been too much fat up top. Cut executive positions and watch profit roll in. Teamsters will keep their fellow Teamsters in line. Saw it happen for years when my neighbor was a Teamster steward at Roadway for road drivers. He held guys accountable in Milwaukee.
YRC doesn’t need to cut from labor. Their problem has always been too much fat up top. Cut executive positions and watch profit roll in. Teamsters will keep their fellow Teamsters in line. Saw it happen for years when my neighbor was a Teamster steward at Roadway for road drivers. He held guys accountable in Milwaukee.
Last edited:
Yellow Fever
TB Lurker
- Credits
- 11
It’s the corporate plan to remain in debt indefinitely. Management still gets their huge salaries and retention bonuses. Their single employer pension fund is doing well. It’s in all the quarterly and yearly reports how much money is contributed to the non-union pension plan. Squeezing the union workforce is nort the way out of the hole. It’s been done since 2009 and without the Federal $700 million “loan” last year we were on track to lose our health insurance August 1 2020 due to nonpayment of funds. Hoping YRC becomes profitable anytime soon is delusional. See ya Tuesday!!!
Thanks for stopping by, but not sticking around to help me get these shutters I am building put up.
Wish you had mentioned this sooner, I'm an expert on shutters.
Building codes require them for our hurricanes.
I'll be willing to lend you my 40' ladder.
If you're in the neighborhood, pick it up.