OAKLEY TRANSPORT BEWARE-THIS COMPANY WILL DECIEVE YOU LAKE WALES, Florida

 The great management can see no wrong on there part. A lot of problems start upstairs with the dispatch and their bosses. The break down dept. Is a joke,just hope you don't have to use them. Worked at Oakley. For a few years, some of the better managers( Christian, dan) have jump ship. They seen what was going on, couldn't do anything about it. A Good company manager listens to his workers , some are out there, but the same thing from so many, there something to it. The money was good it's the bull they put you thur. Go to lake Wales for service end up being there for days

This is written as a non-direct response to this post. This is not a direct rebuttal as I have no direct information to share with this individual’s separation with the company or the circumstances surrounding the separation. Instead, for clarification I wanted to generally address some of the concerns brought up within the post itself.

“Fittings Deposit”

Oakley Transport issues company equipment to each of their drivers. The equipment includes food grade, stainless steel fittings and tools only with food grade hoses and other related materials. This equipment is used in cases where a customer may not have their own hoses or pumps and may need the use of ours to facilitate loading or unloading. This happens for roughly 5-15% of our freight. The equipment costs nearly $1,700. We ask that our drivers escrow $500 as a good faith deposit that they will be returned if the driver ever separates from the company. The money is always the drivers and will be returned to him/her less any monies owned to Oakley Transport. If a driver were to cash advance their paycheck, let’s say $300 and then quit the $300 advance will be subtracted from the escrow before being returned to the driver. The $300 was an advance, it was loaned to the driver before the driver was paid and is due back to the company.

The escrow deposit is taken at $25 a week over a 5 month period. If a driver were to separate prior to reaching the $500 amount the driver would only be entitled to how much that specific driver put in, less an monies owed to the company, if any.

Once the driver escrows the $500, over the 5 month period, the $25 weekly deduction stops. The driver is fully funded. Again, if the driver decides to move on and all of the issued items are returned they get all of their deposit back minus any money owed, if any. We ask for the escrow deposit to assure items are returned to the company. If the driver were to keep the issued equipment Oakley Transport would actually lose over a $1,000 worth of equipment. We don’t want our driver’s money, we just want our fittings back and this system works to assure that.

“Turnover”

Currently, Oakley Transport is below the industry turnover average. That doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do to make things even better here but it also doesn’t mean we have a bunch leaving every week either. From the driver’s prospective turnover is a difficult thing to judge, especially if a driver is simply basing their projections off of class size. Oakley Transport has decade’s long relationships with nearly all of our nation’s largest suppliers of raw liquid food ingredients. We also carry bottle ready finished product for worldwide brands. These companies have grown in size as our country has grown. This has led to new business opportunities both within our existing customer base and with new clients. We have more mouths to feed now and that means more loads for us. We are a liquid food grade tanker company so the more we eat as a nation the more miles we do as a company. Take a look around. We are all eating! This isn’t a driving job. We are food transportation specialists. Waiters on wheels, call it what you will but we are busy… and we are growing. If any of our folks in our driver force looked at our orientation class as a reflection of how many drivers we have lost in a given time frame would be easily misled. Our fleet is growing. We need larger classes to support the new business. We bought 200 new trucks this year. 2 years ago we only had 285 trucks. Don’t look at the class size, just ask the question if you want to know the turnover. Our classes are bigger because we are hiring more drivers as we grow to fill these new trucks.

“Breakdown”

Any breakdown issue is truly an exercise in communication between the parties involved. A driver experiences an issue and then needs to convey that information to a person more often than not that can’t see the issue themselves. Some people don’t know the proper name for truck parts or what is actually failed. Sometimes breakdown folks are too detailed to understand or know more about the failures and their causations than the folks they are helping which can lead to issues too. The point is, communication is often the issue. There are times when breakdown may have 10 issues going on at the same time and only one person on the phone like during the overnight shift. The breakdown person is trying to reach 10 after hours contacts at vendors and tow companies. There is too much going on to for the breakdown guy to call everyone back so you have 10 drivers feeling like they are being ignored when your breakdown person is working like crazy to solve everyone’s issues. It happens. It’s not an Oakley issue, it’s an industry issue. Tires go flat, lights burn out. Sometimes vendors don't repair the truck the right way. We have all been there. Problems happen and we will do everything in our power to make it right for the driver.

“Layover Pay”

Layover is paid at Oakley in cases where the driver is not a fault for the issue that caused the layover. As every situation that causes a layover is unique there is an investigation into layovers. Layover pay is between the driver manager and the driver, on a case by case basis. Not every layover is the carrier’s fault nor is always the driver’s. There is an investigation that needs to go into each situation. This is the fairest application for the driver and the carrier. Carriers are not making money when a truck is broke down and carriers that pay layover without an investigation typically underpay somewhere else. There is only so much money to go around. Trucking companies are not the cash cows everyone thinks they are. Margins for returns on investments are often 4% or less for many trucking companies. When you look at it that way you can see a carrier has a responsibility beyond the single breakdown event. A carrier has a duty to do what is prudent for the organization as whole so that every employee is assured a job to go to the next day. Oakley believes in the relationship between the drivers and the company. We believe in fairness. We believe in those family values.

“Driver Pay Items”

Oakley Transport requires a driver to be able to qualify for at least a one year DOT physical card on initial on-boarding. The applicant will pay for this physical. Oakley pays for every physical after the first.

We ask that every driver who qualifies to enter US ports and enter Canada to obtain a TWIC and a Passcard or Passport. Drivers who do not have a TWIC or the ability to enter Canada are available to less freight. Less than 5% of our freight enters Canada but some fleets enter the ports more often than others. Ultimately it is in all of our driver’s best interest to have a TWIC and a Passcard or Passport so they are available for 100% of the loads. As a driver I would not want to be in a situation where I missed out on a load because I did not qualify to run with it. These are driver related expenses (and tax deductible). The TWIC is good for 5 years. The Passcard/Passport is good for 10 years.

“Forced Dispatch”

Every company is forced dispatch. Even the companies that say they are not forced are forced dispatch. How many times will a customer call a carrier with a load for it to be turned down after offering it to 5 drivers that all said no. Once, maybe twice. Let’s face it, there are places we don’t want to go. There are loads we are going to take that we don’t want to. It happens. But the thing is there will be the next load. You will go somewhere else. No one can promise you that you will always go where you want to when you want to go. Freight doesn’t move like that. What we can promise is that we will take every concern a driver has to heart. We will always do our best. And there isn’t a person here that doesn’t care. Many of us here, myself included, field calls 24/7. I have had calls on Christmas morning, birthdays… it doesn’t matter. I am a former driver and I know what my driver force goes through and I care. If I were on the road on Christmas day (and I have been) with a problem I want to know that someone will answer the call. Beyond that I want them to care and understand the issue. We do.

Again, I am not commenting specifically about this poster’s situation. I am only addressing the items brought up for a better understanding of those general issues. If you have questions call us. My name is Christian Stanley, I am the Safety and Compliance Manager and my cell phone number is 863-978-9201. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Oh My Gog
I agree with the Outlaw.
That makes me so sad :(

 this won't help anything

It costs more money to hire someone and train them. So they want a high turn over rate, right? They get paid ONLY when the wheels turn, so they deliberately keep you stranded, right? Since you've already said a mouthful which shows you don't know what you're talking about, why not tell us the specifics of your story? What happened? You had a series of preventables? You were habitually late? You failed a drug test? You have an attitude problem so they got rid of you?