My husband and I worked for Werner till March of this year. We quit because we were fed up with never getting home on time, forced dispatch, and not getting paid for actual miles. My husband started working for them in 1997 and I started in 2000. Since 2001 we have been owner operators.
We were buying 2 trucks, and training, but couldn't seem to make any money. Each truck was running 4500-5000 miles a week, at a conservative estimate. To give you a better idea: we put over a million miles on one truck in the span of 3 years.
I kept track of everything and finally sat down with all the settlements and figured out with the actual mileage we were running, at the rate we were getting paid, and the amount of time we were out, we were making less than minimum wage.
When I repeatedly called the owner op dept. And asked when we would be getting a raise, I was told NEVER because Werner paid at national average.
What I wrote here doesn't even scratch the surface of Werner's deceit. When we quit earlier this year they lied to the company we left them for and had to prove we had not abandoned Werner's equipment. Werner reported on our DAC report that we had abandoned their equipment. How could we abandon Werner's equipment when it was our truck that we had financed outside of Werner?
And to slap us in the face even harder I inquired what our rate would be if we came back to company driving and was told as a team we would make. 30cpm! My husband has over 12 years experience and I have 5 1/2! If only I went back to company driving I would have went back at the same rate my students were starting out with once they received their own trucks.
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