Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Carlisle, PA - End of the line

Today was one of those days that makes me wonder if I'm going to be in an orange truck for much longer. I ended up having to drive nearly 700 miles and go nearly three hours over my 14 today just to have a chance of making on time delivery tomorrow. As it is, I'm going to barely make it and even that's only if traffic is cooperative tomorrow afternoon. The one that absolutely floored me, though, is when operations started trying to tell me that I don't get layover pay if I get a motel room, even though the employee handbook clearly states that the two are both given assuming I get authorization for it. And there is no way that I'm going to spend 48 hours (or more) in the truck without work to be done, considering that I don't have a heater and the batteries only will last about 12 hours.

Here's the relevant sections directly out of the book. I've just copied and pasted them here for everyone to interpret. Please tell me if you see any way that could possibly suggest that I am not able to collect both layover pay and motel reimbursement; I cannot find any possible way of interpreting it that way. I've underlined a few key words.

Layover: Company directs a driver to layover in excess of 24 consecutive hours at a location other than the driver‟s home, park location, assigned operating center or designated maintenance facility, and the driver does, in fact, layover. The driver must receive prior authorization from the DBL to be compensated.  Under normal circumstances this authorization will occur in a discussion between the DBL and the driver prior to incurring the layover. (Voluntary layover is not compensable including voluntary 34 hour Hours of Service re-set)

Motel: If the company requires a driver to layover for more than 24 consecutive hours or in case of a breakdown exceeding 8 hours, motels will be reimbursed.

On top of that, it looks like they're also not putting my routing points. That is also threatening to take away my bonus and cost me more than $100 just in the last week. I'll be calling operations in the morning to point that out to them and inform them that, if they aren't willing to pay me fairly, then I'm not willing to work for them. The most basic thing any employer offers an employee is a paycheck; if they can't even get that right then I'm jumping ship before it goes down. Now that I have a year of experience I can find somebody else to drive for.

Edit (2:45 AM): I've spent the last hour or so just downloading my last month's worth of pay stubs and doing the math. In the process, I discovered a whopping $730.62 in pay that I should have received that's omitted. Five days of layover ($80 each, $400 total), 450 miles worth of routing points ($162), and the fact that I'm getting underpaid two cents per mile across the board, ($0.02 times 8,431 miles is $168.62). Even if they are going to come up with some excuse to not give me layover pay - and I'm going to insist that they put the policy in writing and fax me a copy - that's $330 and change that I'm owed in back pay. I'm going to insist that it be added to my next paycheck or that they just consider the call my two weeks notice.

1 comment:

  1. The only thing I can see that might be interpreted as not getting hotel pay is the having the company require you to lay over. however, if they're authorizing layover pay then it sounds to me like they pretty much are requiring you to layover.

    The routing points thing you need to clear with your board when it happens (especially if night shift gives the ok for it!), or they might not pay you for that. If you have, then something's off about that.

    As for the 2 cent per mile loss, if you're on per diem, then that's where the 2 cents are going. Small fee the company collects for it. I don't know why they don't tell people this, but it's something all companies do concerning per diem.

    Keep us updated on how it goes!

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