Walmart drivers earn an average of $87,500 per year, and this year, it’s getting better for all drivers by way of increases in per mile rate and activity pay and training pay. One of the biggest differences from other driving companies is Walmart drivers get paid in more ways than mileage pay. Walmart says drivers average $80,000-$100,000 per year.
Anysee bda capture device(2009.03.30 ad01060316) driver downloads. Wal-Mart has significantly upped the ante in its effort to compete for an ever-dwindling supply of qualified, compliant truck drivers.
The nation’s largest retailer is increasing pay for truck drivers with three years’ accident-free experience to around $87,500. That 89 cents per mile over-the-road rate would make a Wal-Mart driver one of the richest in the industry. Walmart operates the third-largest private fleet in the country with about 6,400 power units, 63,700 trailers and around 200 straight trucks, according to a 2017 compilation of its fleet.
This year Walmart is hoping to add hundreds of drivers to its fleet. The wage increases start this month. In addition to its private fleet, Walmart is a huge truckload shipper in the common carriage and LTL arenas.
- Hats off to the unsung heroes of the road. We proudly recognize the hardworking, dedicated women and men who make Walmart’s private fleet the best of the best.
- Walmart drivers with clean driving records and demonstrated experience are those who greatly succeed at the company, earning the most pay and seeing bonuses related to their driving skills. Qualities that excellent and high-earning drivers at Walmart often display.
Walmart said it added more than 1,400 new drivers last year. But with same-store sales increasing 3 percent year over year and Wal-Mart increasingly competing with Amazon in the e-commerce space, company officials quietly admitted the most efficient way to stay competitive was to be aggressive with driver pay.
And while Walmart is paying the drivers more, analysts caution shippers and manufacturers that eventually those costs trickle down to them.
“Driver wages don't go higher unless rates go up--this is important,” said Stifel analyst Dave Ross in a recent note to investors about driver pay in general. “We believe that the driver shortage is a simple commodity shortage driving truckload rates higher.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage of a truck driver is $44,500 per year—about half what Walmart’s starting pay for veteran drivers will be under its new pay schedule.
Only about 10 percent of all drivers earn more than $64,000 in wages every year—nearly all at Teamsters-covered carriers such as UPS, YRC Freight and its subsidiaries and ABF Freight System.
Walmart is guaranteeing its truck drivers get three weeks paid time-off its their first year, as well as quarterly bonuses for safe driving. Plus, the company is emphasizing its drivers get two days a week at home—largely because of its emphasis on regional short-haul truckload deliveries.
In addition, drivers say, Walmart routinely offers cash bonuses per year between $3,000 and $4,000. Profit sharing is also provided, with an average profit sharing of $1,698, according to Drive4Walmart.com.
When working for the company, the average Wal-Mart truck driver also gets several perks including discounts, paid vacations, health care and other fringe benefits that make a Wal-Mart driving job one of the most elite in the industry, along with UPS and a few of the unionized LTL carriers.
Collectively, Walmart says its fleet drivers log approximately 700 million miles per year. The average Wal-Mart truck drives more than 100,000 miles annually. Wal-Mart has been named the “Safest Fleet” in its category 12 out of the last 16 years, the company said.
© Dreamstime/Fresno Bee/TNS A Walmart truck driving on the interstate on a cloudy day near Bakersfield, Calif., in 2018.A Fresno, Calif., law firm has scored a major victory with a U.S. Court of Appeals decision upholding a multi-million-dollar verdict for about 700 Walmart truck drivers.
Lawyer Nicolas “Butch” Wagner of Fresno successfully represented the California truck drivers who filed a class-action lawsuit against the mega-retailer nearly a decade ago for short-changing their pay. About 100 of the truck drivers are from the Fresno area.
“We are elated,” said Wagner, of Wagner Jones Kopfman & Artenian. “This has been an eight-year battle and we knew we were on the right side of this. These guys work about 14 hours a day and have dangerous jobs. They work hard and they finally got justice.”
The truck drivers alleged in their lawsuit that Walmart was not paying them for specific parts of their job, including waiting in line to load or unload their cargo, time spent to fill out federally mandated trip slips, inspecting their trucks, and washing and fueling their trucks.
After a 16-day trial in 2016, a federal jury in San Francisco awarded the truck drivers $54 million. The final amount will be higher because the judgment has accrued interest, Wagner said.
Lawyers representing Walmart appealed the decision to the U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in San Francisco. That decision was issued Monday.
Walmart’s argument
Walmart’s lawyers, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher of Los Angeles, argued that the district court did not have jurisdiction to decide the case and the jury should not have awarded damages for layovers, rest breaks and inspections.
But the panel, in its decision, wrote that the district court “correctly concluded that, under California law, time drivers spent on layovers was compensable if Walmart exercised control over the drivers during those breaks.”
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Wagner said Walmart required the drivers to stay near their trucks during layovers, yet they were not being paid for that time.
“When you are under control of your employer, you have to be paid,” Wagner said. Neo laptops philippines.
Attorneys with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher could not be reached for comment Monday. Walmart has the option to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
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