At a minimum you have to work 30 working days to make any seniority board. Once your on the board you will be on the bottom of the list and that my friend blows. You will have to do all the shifts that no one wants, cover vacations, sick days etc. By contract the company has to have 1 bid a year but they are free to have a bid practically everyday if they should want to.
However if they only have enough volume for lets say 25 guys and there is 30 of you, that means that 5 of you will be placed on layoff status. You can work to keep your benefits or go to another union barn and work there to try to make ends meet until you can get a guaranteed 40hrs. In the summer you will work everyday just to cover the vacations but after labor day you will see a lot more dock than the street.
In case you havent been told, you will have 15% of your wages taken as "equity wages". You use to see how much they were taking but in January the company decided to "help morale" and remove that total from your weekly paystub. Now it will just show the wages your actually earning minus the 15%.
Other than the free health insurance, you can do a LOT better at other places as far as wages and benefits go. The pension here has been gutted severely and I am not just talking peanuts or sour grapes. Ask a senior guy. Some senior men over the last 10 years have had literally $100,000 taken from them (12-14k a year in wages, plus the lack of pension contributions).
You should also know that several pensions that are in some of the barns are now at bankrupt levels. That means the pension benefit guarantee corp that the government runs will have to take over the pensions of those that are now insolvent. They will not be able to pay out the sums guaranteed to those who are getting pensions now or in the future. Some will get 40% less than what they thought they were going to get.
Also, as a junior guy, you will be the 1st to get put on layoff. Right now freight is booming with pool supplies and summer furniture and such but after labor day things will slow down and thats where things get tricky.
New Penn use to be the kings of the road. New equipment every 3 years, new trailers, anything broken was fixed asap. Now its a common sight to see tractors with a million miles plus on them, floors in the trailers you can see the pavement below and your dock equipment like forklifts all have 10's of thousands of hours on them. New Penn has become victimized by the yellow river of never ending misery. New Penn, YRC, Holland, Reddeway all are the LOWEST paid LTL drivers on the street.
$11.90 hr for dock help that are convicted felons, lowlifes that have to take a job to keep their welfare and dont care how they handle the freight that keeps your job. Sub $18 hr to start on the upstate ny supplement and it takes 3 full years to go to top rate which is in some cases less than $22 with the 15% giveback.
A job is a lot more to consider than the weekly or hourly pay. Its the whole package. Choose wisely .. very very wisely.
UPS is where its at. They manufacture money it seems like. Nice equipment well maintained and no shortages into the pension either.
