A few new Canadian drivers have started at our place and I’m still shocked and amazed at the resigned acceptance by them and many other Canadian (and Foreign) truck drivers who work for large well known companies and small companies to work for FREE e.g: FREE loading and FREE unloading, FREE tarping, FREE waiting to load and FREE waiting for a reload… they seem begrudgingly happy just to be paid my the mile. I ‘usually’ get $10.25c (BC minimum pay) when I’m waiting to load or unload, It’s peanuts really, but it’s better than ‘Nowt’ and if i didn’t get paid anything i just couldn’t do the job…
Its no wonder the wage structures never change with this kind of mentality really, we get $18 an hour while waiting but our $ per km rate is pants 
We get paid for everything We do, load, tarp, borders etc. I get on the qualcom if im anywhere over 2 hours & sort out payment on the spot. Our gang are very fair in all honesty with us.
I know of another flatdeck firm in Mb who get nothing other than mileage which I thinks a joke.
It seems the norm in this part of the world to get drivers to sit around for sometimes days without pay, even those that pay demand you give them the first 2 hours. My company pays $18.00 and hour for detention after 2 hours, $18.00 for breakdowns and service on the truck. There are guys on the company who never book the hours and complain, I just tell them it’s their right to the pay so book it. Tanker work is very easy and doesn’t involve spending hours of hard work loading or unloading but when I did dry van work the company I worked for (St Ann) paid very well for everything over and above driving.
I get extra for running BC, waiting time, layover pay, extra for running overnight, washing the truck and for every load/unload or drop and hook.
Usually works out between $1500 to $2000 extra per month in my wages. That’s like doing another 4000 to 5000 miles extra a month. A lot of our drivers don’t like the ‘messing’ around and would rather do the miles, me I prefer working smarter than harder.
They (the locals) can’t get the miles mean money thing out of their head 
Funny that 
I didn’t know untill recently that I am allowed to book $50.00 for each time I go through a truck wash (max twice a month). We also get paid for DOT checks, $100.00 for L1, $75.00 for L2 and $50.00 for L3.
Yeah we get the DOT $ too, one bloke (dead now) always used to act the fool at scales so he would get pulled round the back for an inspection.
He made a fortune out of it as he was always 100%
This sort of lunacy is the norm in the Maritimes. It will never change here, or if it ever does, this area will be the last to cling on to these archaic ways because the locals know no better and don’t want to know. Most companies here just pay a flat milleage rate and thats it. Some pay for picks and drops, not including the first one and much rarer, companies like the one I work for pay for all picks and drops but at $20 a time, if you’re there for more than an hour it starts becoming nothing more than a token gesture.
Personally I hate mileage pay, I think its the most grossly unfair way for a company employee who has no bearing over the work the company obtain or chose to dish out to be paid. This sort of system has bread the chronic “Blue eyed boy” syndrome that is endemic over here where a ■■■■■■■■ group of brown noser’s get good consistent miles and the rest of the firm are basically used as part time drivers at the companies convenience.
I think a basic day rate plus a mileage bonus would be the way forward. That way companies will no longer willingly sit trucks for several hours or days at a time for a load that pays $200 more and drivers will still be encouraged to do the miles due to the bonus so that the lazy bone idleness that is prevalent in UK trucking doesn’t take root here.
Well said Robin.
Going back to the unloading pay bit … I used to go to a drop in Wilmington MA that took Irving tissue, it was front to back cases on the deck on slip sheets, myself and every other driver refused to touch the stuff for a measly $45.00 so as the drop did not use rip off lumpers my company would arrange a couple of agency workers who took 8 hours to offload the trailer and who can blame them ? If I were one of the poor sods I would get as much out of it as possible, anyway … we drivers had to sign their time sheets before we left so they could get paid, after 8 hours we would always be too late for our return load pick ups and getting back that night so I asked the 2 guys how fast they could get the load off if I signed for the full 8 hours ? “About an hour” came the reponse and so we struck a deal, the load was dragged off for them to spend as little time as they could stacking it on pallets and I nipped down to my pick up and got loaded and home which saved the company a drivers lay over pay, got the return load back on time and allowed me to take out the next days load, everyone was happy … Except my boss who told me it was fraud and will not pay the two guys. It took me days talking to him to get him to realise that it all went in his favour to do this.