DEMURRAGE - aka time is money...or lack therof.
I was asked to pick up an 'EMERGENCY LOAD" on Tuesday. (although these folks seem to have an emergency on a daily basis according to their emails.) Per customer request they wanted my truck washed out and sitting at the loading facility overnight in order to load at 6am and run the load straight to the destination the same day (584 mile haul). Arrangements were made to be washed out and sitting there Monday night, which the driver was. Late Monday, well after office hours, my customer called to ask if instead of running it straight to destination could they change our delivery appointment time to 8a on Wednesday morning. I said that was fine, that I had a reload scheduled for Wednesday and that would still work for us.
My truck arrived for his 8a unload appointment at 7:45a. He was immediately told that his load was scheduled for 4am the previous day, that he was over a day late and that he would be worked in when they could get to him. Of course we realized at that point that surely there must have been some type of clerical error because we were clearly told by the customer that he had spoken with the plant manager on Monday evening and that instead of running it right out that evening ( which apparently still would have been late) that they wanted to switch the appointment to 8am.(that's sarcasm of course for those who do not recognize it)
Although my truck arrived ahead of his appointment, he was not scaled in until 8:33am. This was due to another truck being on the scale when he arrived, and they sample the trucks on the scale, and then a 2nd truck was empty and scaled out before they could get to my guy.
Throughout the day I kept asking the customer when we might have some indication on a time to be unloaded. He said he was trying to get an answer. By the afternoon I was called and told that approx. 4-6 more trucks would be unloaded before they could get to us and it would likely be 8-10p before we got unloaded.
My truck was FINALLY offloaded at 3:19am Thurday morning. 20 hours and 19 minutes after our SCHEDULED delivery appointment. I had of course asked the customer about demurrage the day before when we knew there was going to be a substantial wait. I had asked at that time if there was a set hourly rate for detention. I got mostly vague responses about how sometimes they are pretty good to work with us, etc.
As requested by my customer, on Thurday morning I got a copy of the scale ticket from the driver and forwarded to customer. I let him know that we would add a line item for the demurrage 19.25 hours minus 2 hours ( on a scheduled appoitment) = 17.25 hours @ $50/hour. For a total of $862.50
My customer came back and said that all they will pay is $30 an hour AFTER 4 hours, except that since our truck was not scaled in until 8:33a he was considered "late" and that would push the demurrage back to 6 hours free wait time, AND they round down, so after 20 hours and 19 minutes I would actually be getting paid for only 12.5 hours. Because of the delay getting scaled and the rounding down of the time we haveended up with 7.75 hours with ZERO compensation and even the time we are getting paid for is substantialy less than it should be.
Who else would show up for work and think it is ok to NOT get paid for your time? I do not understand why truck drivers are expected to wait without fair compensation. These days the profit margins have gotten tighter then ever.
If I had a dollar for everytime I have been told "fuel is down" in the past year I could probably just retire now. But there seems to be no consideration for the costs in trucking that have continued to rise:
A new Peterbilt currently goes for $170K and the average truck payment is around $1900 a month vs $1500 per month only 4-5 years ago.
Insurance is around $850/month on the average for a used truck - up over $250 per month in the last 4 years.
Tires are running about $480 to $550, a full 25% increase in just 3 years.
Oil changes have increased 30% over 7 years across the board regardless of where you get them done.
Combine that with a drivers rent/mortgage, utilities, car payment, etc. at home - those costs have not dropped with the cost of diesel fuel.
Any one who knows me, knows that I advocate for my drivers day in and day out. Our guys are out on the road doing a harder job than I could ever imagine doing myself. It is discouraging to me and insulting to their efforts when it seems to just be "no big deal" that 20 hours and 19 minutes of wait is ony is worth $375.