Yellow | Protect The Dock Only Teamster Brothers and Sisters On The Change of Operations!

You think a dockworker should make as much as a guy who holds a CDL ? A driver is more valuable to the company.
That attitude there is why everyone should top out at the same pay at the end of 18-month period. Everyone is equally valuable to the entire operation. When I started everyone started out $1 below top-out pay and got raises after 90-days, 6-months and topped out after 1-year. I did it all, and to me working third shift dock is twice as hard as line haul or city driver (just my opinion).
 
If you have an incident which disqualifies your DOT physical, should you get driver rate and stay at company on dock for driver rate or get dock rate or lose your job totally?
If you're on the dock waiting for some for some ticky tack DOT doc who doesn't "like" your medication, or after having 3 sleep tests with no indication of OSA, (obstructive sleep apnea) and says " All morbidly obese people have sleep apnea. I want you on a machine. I won't certify you without it" Or "Hmm I've got you at 125 over 90 and juuust a little more say 91 on the BP. I'm going to pull your card" until you get that under control." Then yes you work the dock at driver rate until you get your card back. If there is an absolute disqualifier that prohibits your employment as a driver I'd have to grudgingly agree to some modifications but not without some negotiation. You take a person who's been a driver for x number of years held a CDL with no restrictions, he has some more value to the company even though they won't admit it.
At my barn 386 (Holland) we use a local industrial clinic with several locations. some are better than others. At one location the doc wants to keep you driving , he puts you at ease, looks at your med list, any notes from your doc, and takes everything into consideration. At the others the motto is "I'd rather you lose your license than me lose mine". No waivers no favors.
Sorry for the long winded reply, but like I said, If its temporary you're a driver pure and simple. For anyone on our side of the fence to take the position "He's off for 3 months where is his pay cut?" "why is the company paying him more than me when he's not driving?" that ffin baffles me.
 
Nothing special. What universe are you in? Slave, I disagree with you, totally. As a driver, at least a driver that hauled hazmat almost every day I had to be background checked, fingerprinted, renew my CDL taking the hazmat test every 5 years, preform hooks, drops, pretrip, intertrip, post trip inspections, drive through various weather, chain some days multiple times, log, put up with idiots on the road, make my time, and after a 12 to 13 hour day go home and do it again the next. I consider that a special job that I preform. Now why would a person that gets his breaks, taking smoke breaks, gets a lunch and drives a forklift for 8 hours get a wage equal to mine? My turn paid $435 a day, during the winter I chained up to 5 times. Paid every time I touched iron. Guess what, majority of the time I made my complete turn, even in the blizzards. My turn paid 544 miles, 5 times a week. Majority of it was on a 2 lane backwoods mountain road. I consider my job special along with every other driver. No I don’t discount the dockworkers either. They’re important.
Well said
 
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That attitude there is why everyone should top out at the same pay at the end of 18-month period. Everyone is equally valuable to the entire operation. When I started everyone started out $1 below top-out pay and got raises after 90-days, 6-months and topped out after 1-year. I did it all, and to me working third shift dock is twice as hard as line haul or city driver (just my opinion).
Twice as hard yes, but factor in that if you have a bad day on the dock you restack the freight or get a broom and clean up your mess. If You have a bad day on a peddle or linehaul. maybe you or someone else doesn't go home again. Drivers have a lot more invested in their jobs than a dock worker., And even in a union job every day as a driver is your last day.
 
Our guys can use seniority to bid road or city. At bid time and when openings happen.
Dock also has benefits at our terminal.
Different schedules for all 3. FT dock has only existed a few years here. Before, drivers covered the outbound and inbound with casuals.
We can use our seniority to bid anything.
Our dock is oncall only. No bid start times.
Most are called in between 2-5. The benefit is if you want to only work 8-10 hours instead of going home when you bring the truck back. Whenever that is.
I'd like to see drivers be able to bid that dock extra board also
Equal pay. It'd be best if it would be all the drivers rate. And the rule would be if bid, no driving. No sending on street at all.
As it is CDL guys cannot bid our dock..only no CDL can.
ok if no cdl can bid for dock. How about when a senior man gets his cdl even though he had 20 years in the dock lose his seniority and start p&d or linehaul back at the bottom of bidding seniority?
Twice as hard yes, but factor in that if you have a bad day on the dock you restack the freight or get a broom and clean up your mess. If You have a bad day on a peddle or linehaul. maybe you or someone else doesn't go home again. Drivers have a lot more invested in their jobs than a dock worker., And even in a union job every day as a driver is your last day.
like right now we drivers in SoCal are dealing with severe wind (Santa Ana winds) we are out here working hoping we don’t flip. While I reworked before I left the yard dock workers were inside the break rooms using restrooms or chilling inside a trailer to avoid the dust that the wind picks up. How is that fair for us drivers that you (docks) get paid as a driver?
 
My point is not to bring pay down but to put pay up.
And to not look at dockworkers as less valuable. When anybody can be put in that job the rest of their career thru situations which can happen to anybody.
Nah me as a driver I don’t discredit a dock because we hope they can take care of the freight as I strap my freight after pickups. I try to strap if I have straps since company can’t buy none right now lol
 
My point is not to bring pay down but to put pay up.
And to not look at dockworkers as less valuable. When anybody can be put in that job the rest of their career thru situations which can happen to anybody.
You can not pay the dock worker equal pay as a driver.
With proper training, most anyone can learn to load freight.
You can't get any John Doe off the street and with adequate training, he still can't drive a truck.
Driving a truck is not for everyone.
It's no different than a heart surgeon doing open-heart surgery, when he's finished, a nurse
can sew you up, but you can't pay her the same as the doctor.
 
My point is not to bring pay down but to put pay up.
And to not look at dockworkers as less valuable. When anybody can be put in that job the rest of their career thru situations which can happen to anybody.
That's not how it sounded. I guess there really isn't any incentive to get a CDL when I can earn as much working the dock. I'm almost always on mandatory OT so when I come off my peddle I hit the dock. There are a few exceptions in the dock only gang, but some of the loads are loaded like storage trailers that you can walk right up the middle. And the sups sign off on it. Now I'm waiting to hear from if you don't like it fix it crowd. I'm talking about maybe 45 minutes to an hour so I break my own load. I'm giving them my 10 hour mandatory. Not more. I'm not spending the night trying to rework a trailer that doesn't seem to bother yeller. Ok now it's time for well you're part of the problem.
 
I just read that a dockworker got crushed on a recent thread in another company.
Yes, there are hazards to the dock workers and I didn't intend to minimize that. There are risks involved around freight docks and any accident is heart breaking. My point was, with DOT issues, bus bench lawyers on every commercial break on TV (injured in a truck accident? call :shit:stain and shyster NOW), a company that will throw its drivers under the bus for any reason, etc, and being in the public eye and under a microscope literally with the "collision avoidance"
systems that will malfunction if the driver is blameless, I think the risks are overwhelmingly on the CDL side of the fence. And anytime I see a dock only brother taking the time to block and brace or strap, I always thank them and ask them if they want a coffee. I think the pay should reflect that.
 
ok if no cdl can bid for dock. How about when a senior man gets his cdl even though he had 20 years in the dock lose his seniority and start p&d or linehaul back at the bottom of bidding seniority?

like right now we drivers in SoCal are dealing with severe wind (Santa Ana winds) we are out here working hoping we don’t flip. While I reworked before I left the yard dock workers were inside the break rooms using restrooms or chilling inside a trailer to avoid the dust that the wind picks up. How is that fair for us drivers that you (docks) get paid as a driver?
That would be an interesting question. I'd have to defer to the yeller fellers here. holland hasn't had dock except for the last few years
 
I'm also gonna say that their are now seperste endorsements or something for CDL licenses.
Some are qualified with only automatic trucks.
And their is a qualification for manual trucks, which, for now, Yellow's Academy requires to put them on the list. They must qualify for manual.
But some come with the automatic endorsement, or whatever it is.
All new trucks here are automatic
Should you pay a man more with a manual endorsement, how about a duplex or triplex, should they pay more?
 
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