Posted on 01/24/2013 11:56:54 AM PST by Vigilanteman
We had a critical shipment of machinery due out of Michigan yesterday. The truck line which our vendor booked said the roads were bad and they wouldn't be able to pick up for at least an extra day. Normally, our plant is a beehive of activity and I would have shrugged this off and waited the day.
However, since the shipment was critical, I decided to check out the story. Our vendor reported the roads weren't nice, but passable and the truck line was making an excuse due to some arcane union rules.
I asked the vendor to fire them on the spot and call in any of the three non unionized truck lines which we use. Not only was our rate about 2/3rds of what the unionized truck line wanted to charge, but we also got our material a day earlier.
Further, since we are on such a roll, I got with our warehouse manager to go over the truck lines which we use regularly.
(Excerpt) Read more at 1-888-no-union.com ...
Total BS what you did. If you had any idea what truckers go through you would not have made them drive through that weather. The work rule was there for a reason, the drivers safety and public safety.
Congratulations on your contribution to the race to the bottom. Your post so infuriates me with its smug ignorance I can hardly keep my post civil. You sir, are ...
Only the ones with ‘finger tip’ grips. They are deadly when they slip.
Why do bowling balls have three holes anyway? One hole should be enough for anybody.
Turnabout should be fair play. He needed to be introduced to a 2x4 and a dark alley.
Anybody can slash tires as well. If he had tires he should expect to have them damaged.
Obviously the union goons were wrong. The shipper called in the non-union co. and the load got to its destination safely.
Like I've always said: you can't argue with success.
Excellent! Feels good, doesn’t it?
I fired Geico yesterday.
The work rule was there to protect the union, nothing more. If there was a genuine road danger, the non-union trucking company would have told us so. So would have the vendor at the shipping point of origin. Or the authorities would have closed the road.
If I had called in sick during a critical work day and my company had caught me in the lie, they'd fire my ass just as quickly as I fired the union trucking company.
If these jag-offs want to lie to me in the future, they'd better be able to make up a lie far more credible than one which can be blown out of the water with a quick phone call to the vendor or an internet search on road conditions in a particular area.
Please see my post #27.
Sorry about that. I thought I was responding to post #21.
No need to apologize. Your point was TOTALLY valid. Just thought I’d add a little more detail.
It remains to be seen whether unionized police and their sympathizers in the legal system will enforce law to protect those who decide not to join or use unions, once the thug tactics start.
I may have been a bit harsh and stretched my point a bit. Certainly union work rules can get out of hand. I should have recognized that.
However, the problem with trucking goes the other way. The poor sap that ending up taking the load is faced with having to drive in really bad driving conditions under pressure to either (1) make a meager living or (2) losing his job.
Professional over the road drivers do not have much descretion to stop when road weather conditions are so dangerous that they should not be out there.
Neither of us were up in that cab. The load got there but we don't know how safely it traveled down the road.
As I said in another reply, union work rules do go too far. I should have recognized that in my post. On the other hand, if you knew what truckers go through you would not automatically accept that a driver was not on the road when he should not have been.
I'll give you a quick exampl, not of weather but of driver grief.
A driver pulls into a weigh station. They ask for registration and insurance papers. Somebody in the compay office pulled them to make copies but did not put them back. Who looks every time they head off a run to see if papers that are always there are there?
The DOT officer looked on line and saw the registration was current and the truck had insurance. Same as when an officer pulls over a passenger car. But, the fine was $2,000. The driver has to pay it and hope the company will pay him back.
The DOT would accept a fax copy of the docs but only if it came into another fax machine. The driver was not allowed to have it faxed to the DOT station he got pulled into.
The DOT would not accept an electronic emailed version even though it looked them up online and the online verification was enough to allow the driver to continue on his way.
The $2,000 fine was for not having the actual hard copy paper in the cab.
Now, try driving a set of doubles in freezing rain, not being able to pull over because your boss tells you some jerk at the other end can't accept his load being 8 hours late and once the driver gets there the same jerk makes him wait 8 hours before he can get unloaded.
The really bad driving conditions were a union lie as verified by (1)the vendor at the pick-up location, (2)the poor sap who ended up droving the load in and (3)an internet check of weather and road conditions.
FWIW, The last critical time I was lied to like this was too late in the day to find an alternative. I ended up renting a U-Haul truck, driving to the truck terminal near the state line and bringing the load in at night in order to keep production running so our weekend crew of men and women who had bills to pay and families to support didn't have to take unscheduled leave. It wasn't fun and the road conditions weren't ideal but it is just one example of what those of us who work in companies lower down on the food chain than the unionized b*st*rds do in order to survive.
I’m am accepting your explanation. It is likely as you say. My focus was on what I know over the road drivers go through. While union work rules may be over the top, at the other end of the spectrum there is need for some change and relief for truck drivers.
My focus was misplaced and not entirely relevant to the disussion. I was off on a tangent, although I’m sure it did not appear that way.
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