No Rewards for Stupidity

“Now is the time for all good owner-operators to come to the aid of their own livelihoods,” to paraphrase something I said last month. In our March issue (Precious Commodities, page 14), I urged fleet owners and managers to do everything they could to help their owner-ops through the present fuel-price crisis. I stand by that, but a few things happened in the intervening days that make me wonder. Not the shutdowns or the slowdowns, but examples of truly misguided thinking and downright stupidity.

Now, nobody can say I’m not a true friend of the owner-operator. I admire your adventuresome spirit, I love your generosity, I respect your intelligence. As a group, you’re a smart bunch of hardworking folks, and I’m behind you all the way.

But sometimes I hear things that make me cringe. Take this story-a true story, I should add-about a group of owner-operators at a Toronto-area fleet.

Even though the cost of fuel has been skyrocketing, these guys turned down the boss’s standing offer of bulk-purchased fuel at a pretty good price because they’d rather buy retail. They’d rather buy retail? Why on earth would anyone in their right mind do that?

You sitting down?

Air miles.

Their brethren are circling the wagons around refineries, slowing traffic to a crawl along the busiest highway in North America, and complaining quite rightly that they’re about to lose their trucks-and these guys are aiming for a free trip to Timbuktu.

Granted, an annual fuel bill of $40,000 would earn you a heck of a lot of air miles, but I thought things were brutally tough out there. Wouldn’t this be the year to save a real buck as opposed to spending more to get a freebie?

Guess not.

Here’s another story of lousy judgement. It’s about a dozen owner-ops at another southern Ontario fleet who joined the recent slowdowns instead of hauling freight.

These guys just didn’t know how good they had it. And now they don’t have it at all.

The fleet in question is a mid-sized LTL operation serving the northeast U.S., and it offers its owner-ops an extremely good rate package-one of the best deals anywhere. Last year, I’m told, they averaged $1.11 gross per hub mile and 1108 hub miles per trip, but that’s just the start.

They’re paid for drops and pickups; they’re guaranteed 10 return trips a month; and pretty much all other costs are paid by the company (insurance premiums, permits, tolls, truck washes, etc.). They get detailed weekly pay statements and quick adjustments, and they’re home every second night with every weekend off. They buy discounted fuel with company fuel cards, and since last September they’ve been getting a fuel rebate of between $250 and $400 every month.

In mid-February, with fuel prices skyrocketing, the pot was sweetened considerably: they were offered fuel at 47 cents a litre plus GST. And how about this? The company offered to buy and install Espar bunk heaters (worth $1500) for its owner-operators so they could minimize idling. It even threw in the $1500 cost of their yearly base-plate. Wow!

You’d think this fleet would have lineups at the recruiting door. But a few days after those latest goodies were announced-representing a net revenue gain of some 13 cents a mile-12 of the company’s 19 owner-operators told the boss they were, reluctantly, going on strike to support their chums.

Subsequently they didn’t call, didn’t answer their cell phones, and a few days later the boss, also reluctantly, pulled their plates. After dealing with angry customers all week.

I hardly need explain the lesson here. But in case it’s not clear, let me say that the only way to reward loyalty is with loyalty. Here’s a fleet owner who was bending over backwards to make an already good deal better because he understood the extreme pressures his guys were facing.

That’s loyalty. Finding words to describe their response is tough.

So, to my owner-operator friends out there, I say please think things through carefully. Use your heads. Suspend your urge for a quick conclusion, a quick fix. Work with your carrier to see what can be done to get you through this very tough period.

Heck, shut down if you really can’t make a living at trucking. But don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.