Trucking Companies Treat Drivers as If They Are Sub-Human

You see the ads in the newspaper offering a career as a truck driver. The salaries promised look good. So you call one of the many companies and they paint you a rosy picture. They promise you lots of money and lots of home time. Don't buy into it!

My husband has been a truck driver at two different times in his working career. The first time was about twenty years ago. He drove for a company that is no longer in business. This company did nothing but lie to him. They were always shortchanging his pay and then they messed up his health insurance. They promised that he would be home weekly but then they would run him out on the west coast, use up his hours and he'd have to spend his days off in some lonely parking lot. For those of you who don't know drivers can only drive a certain amount of hours and then they are mandated to rest. This is all good as far as safety but typically what happens is the company will have the driver at the opposite end of the country and then he has to sit far away from his family using up his time off.

After being downsized at age 55 and no one offering any jobs my husband has returned to driving truck. By the way, he was an Engineer for 24 years. He couldn't find any local jobs because they all insist on recent driving experience. They can be more choosy because these are the jobs that the drivers want. His experience so far with one of the well known trucking firms in the U.S. is an appalling example of companies knowing they have employees over a barrel and will abuse them all they want.

First they sent him to orientation via bus. Ok, I'll admit it, we've lived sheltered lives. I've never seen the likes of the people he was sharing this bus trip with. I was thinking that several of them looked like convicts and then lo and behold a department of corrections van pulled up and dumped off two recently released prisoners to join him on this trip. This was to be a delightful nine hour trip to his destination. He left Rockford, IL at six in the evening and got in to Chicago at almost eight. Then he had a fun three hour lay over in Chicago at a bus terminal.

There were two buses leaving at the same time to the same destination, and they were overbooked. He had to stand in line for over an hour to make sure that he was able to catch the bus to Indianapolis for orientation. Upon arriving in Indy at 3:50 am, he had to call a taxi to take him to his hotel. It took an hour to get from the bus terminal to the hotel. He had to be in the lobby of the hotel at 6 am to leave to the trucking company's terminal for orientation. He hadn't slept at all. The first day of orientation lasted until 7 pm. Many of the men were saying they were tired and the response they got was, 'you're truck drivers now'. He did finally get to sleep that night, but the trucking company makes the guys share rooms. Since they have three different orientation classes going on at once drivers are coming and going at all times. In the middle of the night a room companion showed up. He of course, turned the lights on, which in turn woke my over tired husband up.

Then there was one more day of orientation and a meeting the next day. Some of the guys left right away with a trainer, others had to wait. If you had to wait you had to go to the lobby each morning for roll call and then you had to be in your room from 8 am to noon and from 1 pm until 5 pm. You were to be there waiting for a trainer to call. If you left your room you had to let the motel desk know where you were. So there you are stuck in a room with some other guy who you just met, bored to tears. Oh and remember you get to sleep in this same room with this guy. You have no idea what his background is but there you are sleeping in a bed in the same room. Who knows if he's a thief, a druggy, an alcoholic, etc., but what the heck, 'you're a truck driver now'.

Trucking firms are spending a lot of money with their trucks idling while the drivers get their mandated rest. This particular company told the drivers that they would have to buy their own bunk heaters that run off of the truck's battery rather than have the truck running to keep them warm. They have been told when the weather is hot they are to open windows. Uh-huh! Have you ever sat in a vehicle when it's hot outside and opened the windows? Did you cool down? Now think about this, this is where you have to rest from your days' work so you'll be refreshed and ready to go the next day.

This entire escapade has been appalling. If you're going to drive truck I would highly recommend joining the Teamster's union and only working jobs where you're protected by the union. These trucking firms need to be sued for their abuse of their workers.