Tag: compensation

Business

Small fleets struggle as freight levels continue nosedive

Small fleets note stark declines in trucking freight and say brokers exploit lower rates. Find out how the coronavirus is impacting owner-operators here.

April 21, 2020

Voices

Not ‘engaged to wait’ while in the sleeper? Readers respond to federal labor opinion on driver compensation

More readers than not agreed with commenter Jason McCarter that, “if you are in your truck at any time, you should be paid,” even if off-duty in the sleeper. Find other views, including those contrary, in this round-up of voices with poll results about sleeper time and pay for employee drivers.

August 8, 2019

Voices

POLL: Should sleeper-berth time for company drivers be compensated directly?

While recent high-profile court rulings seemed to suggest that even off-duty sleeper time for employee drivers should be subject to minimum wage compensation rules, but a Department of Labor opinion has more recently contradicted that. What’s your take?

July 24, 2019

Channel 19

Round-up: When a negative for investors is a positive for drivers, and early look at fully-electric Mack truck

Driver pay is bringing more cost to carriers, and that’s a good thing. Take the good with the bad, though: Freight outlook for the year, judging by the past few, isn’t great. Also: Mack’s first LR all-electric refuse truck goes to NYC sanitation, brief video ahead of WasteExpo next month.

April 23, 2019

Business

The expansion challenge: Getting started with solid freight relationships

While most owner-operators have considered adding a truck to their business, many never try it, and few have sustained success for years. The challenges are many, but the rewards can be substantial for the right operators with a close eye on new opportunities.

March 4, 2019

Overdrive Radio

Local/regional fuel hauling and the winter volume boost, cost tradeoffs and more

This week’s Overdrive Radio podcast features small fleet owner Dave Marti of Forrest, Ill., with six power units leased to Transport Services of Sullivan, Ill., hauling fuel in the region around his home base, and a newly built six-bay shop. Balancing the volume/cost tradeoffs is one of the many calculations the owner’s learned to make over his years in business.

February 1, 2019

Overdrive Radio

‘Dynamex’ ABC test ‘an unfair hammer to legitimate contractors’ — view from a small fleet, and a contractor

The latest podcast is talk with the owner of, and a contractor with, Southern California-based Angus Transportation, the now three-truck business of Jimmy Nevarez, the source of the quotation in the headline, hitting on the problematic nature of the independent contractor classification test for truckers who value entrepreneurial leased relationships and much more.

January 11, 2019

Electronic Logging Devices

Downward mobility: Owner-operator income after the ELD mandate

The share of owner-operators expecting to tally more than $70,000 in net income for year 2018 was 27 percent smaller than the share that reported the same for 2017 net income, according to Overdrive’s recent surveys. 65 percent overall reported making generally less money since ELDs came into play.

January 3, 2019

Channel 19

Truckers are classified as ‘unskilled labor’? Nope

A new video from TruckerNation effectively debunks this oft-repeated myth. What it doesn’t do is highlight what’s typically happened in my own experience when those invoking the myth are asked for some clarification — what follows, often, is an invocation of the reality of the exemption from overtime-pay protections for DOT-regulated motor carrier employee drivers.

December 19, 2018

Voices

POLL: Which issue would you describe as the biggest in trucking today?

Which of these major issues of discussion in trucking gets your vote for the most pressing today?

October 30, 2018

Business

Guaranteed pay making waves in driver compensation

With more company-driver minimums in place, owner-operators might not have far to look for a parachute of employee-based stability when the next downturn comes.

July 2, 2018

Business

Another carrier moves toward salaried driver pay structure

In addition to an annual salary, drivers will still have the opportunity to earn more compensation and bonuses. More on the new salary structure on Overdrive.

May 21, 2018