Tim Chase
Crew Leader of 15 Years
Moderator/Lead Designer for The Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Professional Movers and moversspecialists.com
At this time of year, the peak season is approaching. With the exception of some states such as California, this has been a slower winter across the country. California seems to have its own issues to deal with: I hear a lot of drivers say they don’t like going into California due to regulatory issues, or they have to deadhead hundreds of miles thereafter emptying out to get a shipment from there. As a lack of capacity continues to be an issue for our industry and circumstances like this arise it almost becomes a perfect storm of problems that make it even harder to get a shipment serviced.
There has been a lot of talk about the rising cost of labor in this industry. While drivers can make a good living in HHG, they are certainly not making enough money to support having to pay more than $200+ a day when it comes to smaller shipments. I personally do not believe it is justified, or even fair to the drivers who are getting pinched with the constantly increasing costs of running their day-to-day businesses, to make less than what they pay in labor to haul a shipment. One of the reasons I charge a flat rate for my crew’s service for the day is because some days we will knock out a job in 2-3 hours and other times we will work 10-12 hours for the same rate. It is just a matter of how the cookie crumbles. It is also my experience that if we keep our rates consistent and work at a high level, we will stay busy and see shipments that pay us above our asking rates, without having to ask for it.
I like to tell those who are asking for $250-$300 per day rate to get their CDL and try living the life of a driver. We make good money as labor and come home to our families each night – unlike the drivers who are living on the road for months at a time and are constantly away from their families. There is also the issue of those people who decide to become a mover, and then want to start at $200 a day when they really have no idea how to do the job. Drivers are tired of paying top dollar for labor when they then have to train them for the job as well. We are in the midst of tax season. Drivers will sometimes post their 1099 revenue for the year and those can be some big numbers, but what we don’t see is all the expenses that come out of that number. With large revenue numbers also comes large expenses.
When it comes to the mover Facebook groups, but for our group in general, there is a lack of presence from the agency or van line individuals. We know they are part of the groups, and they watch to see what is going on, but we would very much like to get their perspectives on different topics. We want to make sure that our group allows for discussion to happen in order to better the industry for everyone involved. I know what the reputation of the Facebook environment is to most individuals outside of drivers and helpers, but part of the reason for that is the algorithms for how posts are displayed on the page. For example, I tried to post a comment asking drivers what they would like to see come from our page or a new website that would benefit them, and no feedback was received because additional posts were added, which knocked my post down the page. Posts that receive the most interaction are generally those that are negative in content or are a controversial topic, and they stay at the top of the page. I would like my last comment to be that this type of content is not how we wish to define our group. Our goal has always been to provide a place for everyone in the industry to have a discussion that elevates our services to the customer. It should not be a place of hostility or have a negative outcome. We welcome all to come and participate in a positive and respectable demeanor.
*Please note this article is an overview from a phone conversation and are not direct quotes. Our goal is to provide insights and perspectives from different areas of the industry to an audience that does not always get the chance to hear from these individuals.
I find it interesting that the drivers that take issue with the daily labor rate are most often the ones operating trucks with massive and elaborately appointed sleepers. They also tend to be the ones talking about their car collections, multiple homes or exotic vacations. Why is it that a need to cut operating costs invariably leads to talk of the cost of labor rather than forgoing the newest chrome accessory for the truck? One suggestion I would make in cutting costs would be for the driver to roll up his or her sleeves and participate in the work, thereby eliminating one person’s daily rate rather than spending the day on the phone or running errands. It has been my experience that the operators running average equipment tend to be more involved in the job and more grateful for the work that my associates and I perform. As the man who trained me 40 plus years ago said to me, “ You can be a cheap driver or you can be a lazy driver, but you can’t be both.”