[HN Gopher] I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Trucker...
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I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are Paid
Author : Geekette
Score : 109 points
Date : 2022-03-26 16:42 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| I was an OTR truck driver for a year for a big company called
| Prime. This was like a decade ago.
|
| I made around 44 grand in a year for around 60 to 80 hours a week
| of work.
|
| You get paid 'per mile' but you spend many hours at docks
| unloading. There were constantly times I would wait in a dock all
| day to unload and since the truck wasn't moving, that was
| considered my 'time off'. Then they would finally unload you and
| you would have been considered to have rested 8 hours and have to
| drive 10 more hours even though you didn't sleep because you were
| waiting for your name to be called to unload.
|
| On the upside, got to see a lot of cool stuff around the country
| and driving those big trucks was badass.
|
| I was on bad terms with my dispatcher because if I got someplace
| early I would spend that extra time sightseeing instead of
| delivering the load early.
|
| After a while, being away from home sucked massively because you
| have such little time off in those big companies.
|
| I think that was a 'paying your dues' type job and if I stuck at
| it there are better trucking jobs out there.
|
| Tech hasn't been a walk in the park but it at least pays really
| well.
| black6 wrote:
| > The trucking industry would quickly find out the same thing
| Uber found out about their self-driving cars, which is that when
| a person isn't on board, the company is on the hook for
| everything that goes on in that truck.
|
| Drivers do _a lot_ more than just get the vehicle from Point A to
| Point B, whether the cargo is alive or not.
| jwithington wrote:
| bleak. why are there minimum wage laws that don't apply to
| everyone?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Having a universal law would soon hit into some huge structural
| problems. Maybe rail actually is more efficient? Maybe cheap
| prison labour isn't the best way to do things? Maybe massive
| too management wages while the bottom tier get less than a
| living wage is bad?
| after_care wrote:
| There are millions of jobs that minimum wage laws do not apply
| to in the US.
|
| * Tip workers
|
| * Gig workers
|
| * Undocumented workers
| jnwatson wrote:
| Tip workers absolute have the same minimum wage laws. The
| minimum wage is lower ($2.13) and they are guaranteed to make
| at least the regular minimum wage if by their tips are not
| high enough
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| You just confused two things, tips are not wages, if you
| get a tip that's a gratuity from a customer. The customer
| isn't paying to relieve the owners of paying [minimum]
| wages, they're giving a gift to the people who served them.
| The level of tip (your last sentence) has nothing to do
| with a person's wages, they either get a minimum _wage_ or
| they don't. Reducing their wage because they got a tip
| would be not paying minimum wage; it would also be
| callously transferring a tip from a worker to an owner.
|
| If the owner wants to be richer stealing the tips is not
| the way, it's immoral for one. An owner should put up sales
| prices or have a separate 'jar' for "tips for the owner".
| boulos wrote:
| This depends on the state. In California, there isn't a
| separate "tipped minimum wage". Waiters in San Francisco
| thus make at least $16.32/hr ($16.99 starting in July) plus
| tips.
|
| Some restaurants are trying to replace tips with service
| charges or higher prices, because the back of the house
| (cooks, dishwashers, etc.) do not receive tips [1]. The
| current pay at a decent but not high end restaurant like
| Zuni is upwards of $70k/yr (the $35/hr mentioned in the
| article).
|
| [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Legendary-
| Zuni-Cafe...
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| "Truck drivers, farm workers, and restaurant staff are exempt
| from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)."
|
| Not the bleakest [1], but yeah, bleak. Long, lonely, boring,
| life-sucking, thankless hours. Essential, yet at the Bottom of
| the 'skilled' totem-pole. Mostly these people are heros, and
| our lives are dependent on their sacrifices. (Many heavy-
| equipment drivers are 'skilled' enough to make _much_ more -
| but working conditions are similar).
|
| FLSA created in 1938 (end of Depression) by US Congress. Same
| body that has left minimum wage at $7.25 for 13 years. The best
| in the OECD (Australia) is US$12.9 (much more in line with
| purchasing power.)
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...
| ta988 wrote:
| I highly recommend https://www.overtheroad.fm/ a fascinating
| podcast about trucking in the U.S.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| First, I think trucks are a super important chain in our economy.
| Second, after reading this _why_ do this? The only reason
| businesses can get truckers is that there are willing truckers to
| do it. Why not just quit? He clearly laid out that $25 /hr is
| about the max you can get / $20 after costs is more realistic
| (pretax wtf?) - and there is no overtime. If I was in this
| situation, I would wake up, think of ways to not do this the
| entire day. I had shit jobs. The most important part of a shit
| job is _know_ you are in a shit job - and to escape. At those
| rates I could just serve tables at AppleBees, crush $25 /hr and
| get free food - also leave my car Turo'ed in the lot.
| silisili wrote:
| Not discounting the author's experience, but it doesn't mirror
| my own. It's probably highly, highly dependent upon the company
| you work for. My father drove OTR for a certain brown courier
| service, and made about 150k a year. This was about 15 years
| ago. You did have to be gone for a whole week at a time, so
| certainly not easy or for everyone, but the pay was quite nice.
| selectodude wrote:
| OTR pays way, way more. I'd be all over it in my younger
| days. Once you have a family, as you said, it can be a bit
| more difficult.
|
| To the author, if you're reading, OTR drivers are in very,
| very high demand. Get that bread.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > To the author, if you're reading, OTR drivers are in
| very, very high demand. Get that bread.
|
| The article talks about the authors experience with OTR and
| why it has a 90% attrition rate yearly compared to 12% for
| local. They already got that bread. The bread was moldy.
| massysett wrote:
| UPS is union. Teamsters. The author is non-union.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > Second, after reading this why do this? The only reason
| businesses can get truckers is that there are willing truckers
| to do it. Why not just quit?
|
| Part of it is because a lot of truckers are owner-operators
| that have a lot of money in their trucks. They are effectively
| employees, not real contractors, and all the pricing power goes
| to the company that hires them but if they quit it means
| bankruptcy.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _At those rates I could just serve tables at AppleBees_
|
| I've worked in a restaurant and worked in construction, (didn't
| drive a truck, but I rode along with the truckers to haul
| equipment).
|
| If I had to choose between working at Applebees or driving a
| truck, I'd definitely pick the truck.
| altcognito wrote:
| Why? Trapped sitting in a truck, anxious about traffic?
| Restaurant work isn't isn't or fun, but at least you get to
| go home to your own bed.
| mjevans wrote:
| The 1-5% (I hope it's this low) of customers that are the
| only ones you can't forget because they make life hell.
| erdos4d wrote:
| This is literally why I quit teaching university and
| never went back to academia. Every class has one student
| who is a complete shit and 95% of your stress revolves
| around this one person. Work that doesn't require much
| human contact is so much better.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Traffic doesn't make me anxious, even when I'm driving a
| large vehicle, and not every truck driver is a long haul
| trucker.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Because poverty and lack of economic options. There's a reason
| trucking turned into a race to the bottom after the decline of
| unionization and deregulation of the industry.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Sure, but this isn't 1956. I could walk into an AppleBees
| _TODAY_ and walk out with a job - easily crush $25 an hour --
| and my car will be Turo 'ed at work.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Applebees and renting your car on Turo is the bar? Peak HN.
| Go talk to more people living paycheck to paycheck. The
| struggle is shared and legitimate.
| [deleted]
| ransom1538 wrote:
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| > my car will be Turo'ed at work.
|
| I'm curious - what does it mean to "Turo" a car?
|
| I'm assuming it means "parked in the parking lot" but I've
| never heard the expression before.
| FigureTheGreat wrote:
| Turo is a service that lets you rent out your car when
| you aren't using it, so it could provide a 2ndary income
| stream while you are at work
| leetcrew wrote:
| to be clear, it's kind of absurd to suggest that renting
| out the car you need to get home for the duration of your
| shift is a reasonable thing to do.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Curios why? If someone wants it for an extra 3
| days/nights, shoulder shrug take uber home = more money.
| Someone cancels, drive to work. Someone has it? Uber =
| more money. Someone cancels during work, drive home like
| normal. Not following why this is _absurd_. I think it
| would be absurd to just sit it in the lot for 10 hours (2
| extra hours since I am sucking up those sweet tips) - or
| take buses home and have a 2 hour commute?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| $20/hr is still more than many other jobs pay, especially those
| not requiring much education.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| It isn't $20/hr. That's just the claimed rate. The actual
| hourly rate is often well below federal minimum wage. The
| article goes into this in detail.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I think it is a bit unfair to be blaming the issues on truckers
| for not quitting. Our other industries get legal protections
| that ensure fair wage practices, we should extend those
| protections to truck driver.
|
| We, as a nation, need these drivers. We have an obligation to
| extend them same wage protections we have. Even if some truck
| driver can and do make quite good money, that doesn't mean that
| the industry as a whole isn't rife with abusive labor
| practices.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Our other industries get legal protections that ensure
| fair wage practices, we should extend those protections to
| truck driver."_
|
| Don't truckers have unions?
| amalcon wrote:
| It turns out that $20/hr is _really_ good for blue collar work
| in most of the US. It beats e.g. serving at Applebee 's (except
| the bartender) by probably about a factor of 2, especially if
| you're not young and charismatic.
|
| If you're in a big city, you might be able to demand a bit more
| than this. Most truck drivers aren't, and don't want to be.
| blamazon wrote:
| Truckers largely give up their ability to be firmly located
| in any one place. If you're willing to do this it stands to
| reason you might be willing to move to a high growth area
| somewhere like Cincinnati where the cost of living is low and
| the floor wage for simple warehouse work is legitimately
| 25/hour. Businesses in Ohio are begging for workers.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Turn around. No homes left.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Businesses in Ohio are begging for workers."_
|
| If the pay is so great and the cost of living so low, why
| aren't more people flocking to work there?
| chestnuttrees wrote:
| Presumably the pay is great if you already live there,
| but not good enough to convince people to move there?
|
| Personally, it would take a 50%-100% raise before I would
| even consider consider uprooting my family and leaving my
| current city. But I'd switch jobs locally for half that.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| The problem is that it isn't really $20/hr. That's the
| claimed rate but they don't pay you for the many hours a day
| spent waiting or unloading or doing anything other than
| moving.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Right and you're not at home every night sleeping in your
| own bed. So you're effectively working 24 hour shifts. Your
| hobbies are limited, you can't really exercise, your diet
| is shit, you have to shower at a truck stop... You can't
| really even take your truck and go exploring the area
| you're in. No place to take a shit, pissing in bottles.
| CPLX wrote:
| Not only that but anyone who's actually worked blue collar or
| front line jobs knows that the ability not to be in the same
| room as your boss and/or customers all day is a _huge_
| selling point.
| mynameishere wrote:
| _He clearly laid out that $25 /hr is about the max you can get_
|
| He clearly laid out a lie. That's your answer. Go from driving
| box trucks to chemicals to driving your own rig and it can get
| to 200/year.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't think he lied about anything, I think you just
| brought up some edge cases he didn't address. His argument
| holds true for the majority of drivers.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Gross or Net?
| travisporter wrote:
| I miss outline
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Oddly the truckers who are paid a salary are Armed forces. I
| would be interested in knowing how the economics of army
| logistics compares to commercial - and if the comparisons take
| this article into account?
| [deleted]
| faangiq wrote:
| Never forget - labor shortages are actually always wage
| shortages. Especially in the tech industry. Start paying
| programmers a more reasonable share of the millions in profits we
| generate and your hiring problems will magically disappear.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| I think this is true regarding truckers, as there seems to be
| many people who can drive trucks but choose not to. If they got
| paid more, they would drive (the author suggests, and I agree).
|
| But is it true for programmers? Are there many people who can
| code but choose not to, but would if the pay was higher? That
| seems less likely.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| _> This industry literally won't even pay for chassis they
| desperately need (and chassis are really cheap compared to
| trucks), doesn't want to pay its workers, but they are supposedly
| going to pay for millions of robot trucks_
|
| Interesting perspective on autonomous freight. Even if self-
| driving trucks become _technologically_ viable in the coming
| years, their economic viability may still significantly trail
| that of personal autonomous vehicles.
| jsnodlin wrote:
| spfzero wrote:
| The article mentioned something about the company being liable
| for anything that happens if there is no driver. At first that
| didn't sound quite right to me, aren't they already liable to
| that degree? Then I remembered contractors etc.
|
| I do think, having a human in the loop who's life is on the
| line in any accident, will tend to be more creative in avoiding
| one than software would be.
|
| Training an AI to avoid simulated accidents is not a complete
| solution. For one thing, there will always be novel situations
| not trained for, and for another, the AI has no visceral fear
| of its own death.
| elefanten wrote:
| If the terminal unit economics convincingly work, capital will
| happily fund someone ready to burn cash to establish market
| power.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly. It'll be someone like Amazon just bypassing the
| shipping/trucking companies entirely.
|
| Or imagine robotic trucks full of sweet crude cruising down
| from Alberta.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| That's a good point,
|
| The thing is, self-driving trucks seem more plausible as
| something technologically viable compared to self-driving
| passenger cars. I've heard proposals to have loading docks
| directly off major highways, so the only driving the things
| would need to do would on highways (and even in special lanes).
| At the same time, I wonder what the advantage of this over just
| trains would be.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| A long time ago when I was in high school (late 1970's), I knew
| some kids whose father was a truck driver. They were better off
| financially than my family (my dad was a high school
| teacher/councilor). I asked one of them about it and learned that
| his dad earned twice as much as mine. (My father had a Masters
| degree and 35 years of tenure.)
|
| Times have certainly changed since then. The trucking industry is
| now rife with exploitation.
| trelane wrote:
| I believe this is a consequence of deregulation in the 80s, and
| everyone focusing on price.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Trucking is far more regulated now than it used to be.
| alistairSH wrote:
| The trucking industry was massively deregulated in 1980,
| opening up pricing competition and making entry into the
| industry easier. While this was likely as net positive for
| society (lower prices), trucking wages have been on the
| decline ever since.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Carrier_Act_of_1980
| robocat wrote:
| > The industry is willfully blind to the situation. It wants
| people to work massive hours for virtually no pay, blames the
| workers if they don't work for free, and then threatens the
| workers with having no job at all if they don't submit to these
| conditions. Then it wonders why people won't go to school to get
| a job the industry itself says won't be around in five years.
| Again, self-inflicted. This industry literally won't even pay for
| chassis they desperately need (and chassis are really cheap
| compared to trucks), doesn't want to pay its workers, but they
| are supposedly going to pay for millions of robot trucks in an
| amount to drive freight rates down to nothing for everybody.
|
| Why personify "The industry" and make odd statements about it?
| Why is there no recognition for the actual systemic economic
| reasons for the issues?
|
| For a comparison from New Zealand, my friend quit professional
| work to become a truck driver. It took a short amount of training
| to get the drivers licence. She got an entry level job that pays
| a little over minimum wage, but it is hourly and she gets paid
| for her hours. Minimum wage soon becomes NZD21 ([?] USD15/hour).
| However the cost of many things is much higher in New Zealand so
| the hourly rates are not comparable (a Big Mac Combo meal is
| [?]USD9 in NZ, a Big Mac Meal is [?]USD6 in the US?). The
| standard of living is fairly good in NZ.
|
| For a great and geek-humourous take on the benefits of truck
| driving, I love this guy:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQXVgniI-hw although he explains
| why he quit mid 2021 due to similar reasons as the OP:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8AnMzhZZE
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "However the cost of many things is much higher in New Zealand
| so the hourly rates are not comparable (a Big Mac Combo meal is
| [?]USD9 in NZ, a Big Mac Meal is [?]USD6 in the US?). The
| standard of living is fairly good in NZ."
|
| Not sure McDonald's is a good way to compare. Crappy food is
| very cheap in the US but good food can be quite expensive. When
| I visit family in Germany I often feel it's the other way
| there. Good, but basic food is quite cheap but stuff like
| Mcdonalds costs more.
| elvis10ten wrote:
| As someone that have lived in both Boston (USA) and Berlin
| (Germany), I don't agree. What places in Germany are you
| comparing to US Macdonalds?
| robocat wrote:
| McDonalds is merely a canonical concrete example due to [1].
| You are implying that good food is not expensive in NZ? The
| cost of living is slightly higher here [2], although like
| everywhere, ones standard of living really really depends on
| ones location and wealth.
|
| Of course, part of the reason for high costs in NZ could be
| due to minimum wages being high (higher than the truck driver
| mentioned in article I think). The US minimum wage in plenty
| of states is half the minimum wage in NZ. No US state exceeds
| our minimum wage[3], even though we are a poorer country per
| capita.
|
| Oh, and healthcare is free in NZ (although the system is far
| from perfect), and after retirement (currently 65 years)
| every single person in NZ gets [?]USD$1300 per month (I
| couldn't find the US comparison but elderly poverty could be
| worse over there?[4]).
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index
|
| [2] https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php
|
| [3] https://www.laborlawcenter.com/state-minimum-wage-rates
|
| [4] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/03/03/does-social-
| secur...
| lostcolony wrote:
| Depends where in the US; a Big Mac Meal in LA will run you
| close to $9 USD as well
| amluto wrote:
| It seems to me that forcing reasonable labor practices on the
| industry might improve efficiency. For example, if freight
| companies don't pay their truckers for loading and unloading
| time, then they have very limited incentive to reduce loading and
| unloading time. If this time started costing the industry even an
| extra $15/hr, that might give a substantial incentive to
| optimize.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| If truckers don't get paid for loading and unloading time, they
| have lots of incentive to reduce it.
| rideontime wrote:
| But the truckers don't have the power to reduce it.
| jsnodlin wrote:
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