Is oilfield trucking in the Bakken going downhill?

What are you hauling? If it is crude, then % of the load is nothing new. I know 1 outfit in OK still paying crude haulers by the hour (and they don't have much work). % pay doesn't mean our pay is weak. Also if we break down we earn money while we wait for a fix.

 

Oh, I don't want to do this, but, what an 'entitled' whiner you are! Doesn't anyone remember the Cold War anymore and the battle between capitalist and socialist economies!? Hey, capitalism won the economic battle, socialism lost! It amazes me how few people understand how markets work and the law of supply and demand!

"...the company is only going to pay what people are happy with!" Eureka! When was the last time you bought a DVR from Walmart and paid them an extra hundred bucks to be distributed to the 'slave' labor in China? Look, wages are determined by markets, not evil, greedy employers (can I get an amen from any of you small fleet owners out there?) Wages aren't going down because "the Man" is trying to put the brothers down (sorry, Youtube seems to have censored the old Garrett Morris SNL skits)!

Wages are going down and they are only going to continue going down. The dollar and the economy are in bubbles that are going to lead to the Greater(er) Depression. Thank God you can work and whatever you can make, be sure to salt some of it away.

As regards the maturing of the oilfield boom, the road and building construction is raging. Somebody is betting a lot of money this is going to go on for awhile. I'm making more than I ever have in my life and just took a job paying double what I'd expect to make back home. I'm VERY thankful!

 

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Simple supply and demand. A growing US and world population coupled with machines that replace workers means a greater supply of laborers and guess what, wages fall.

No one or nothing is intrinsically worth anything. Everything is valued at what somebody is willing to pay for it. People are out of work around the country or working for low wages and they move to the money and increase the labor pool and wages fall. So many Americans don't understand the economic system that made America, America.

 

Nobody's twisting either one of you guys arms. If you don't want to work cheap then go fine a better paying company. Plus if it wasnt for guys working cheap the pay wouldn't be cheap. Once the company can't find drivers to work cheap the wages will go up to get someone to hire on. Dime a dozen drivers are getting harder to find in the patch, but some drivers don't know that their hazmat cdl is worth more than ever now. I had a chance to go up to ND in 06. Turned it down. Haven't regretted it at all.

 

Seriously doubt the hazmat is worth more than ever but I know sand haulers aren't making what they used to. Guys used to sit on demurrage for a week waiting to unload. The fracing companies have found ways to cut back and cut back on demurrage, as they should, but that means wages are significantly less. Now that I think about it, hazmat is not worth more than it used to be.

 

The only problem is, just, you're wrong. I hate to throw jargon at you but one of the assumptions in a market based economy is that participants will act "rationally" in their own economic self interest. Even without jargon, everyone understands no one is coming up here looking for minimum wage jobs but are actuall looking for the best pay they can get.

In my case, I came to the oilfields in January. I became friends with one of the guys I went through orientation with. We talked all the time about what we hoped to make as well as the options we had for making more. In his case, he became an owner operator. In my case, I just changed jobs to something higher paying and a regular schedule and housing. So, lay that to rest, people are going to get as much as they can.

Hourly v. percentage is a whole nother matter. Indeed, companies may cut costs by paying percentage, the reasons are twofold:

1) The first is innocent enough, percentage motivates you to work. When guys are on the clock, some are going to milk the clock and do less knowing they'll still get the same pay. If you're on percentage your pay will be higher the more you work, and vice versa.

2) The second reason for going to percentage is the thing that has you up in arms, it can be a way of cutting wages. Though it's possible in some cases for guys to make more money hauling percentage, in the end it can also simply be a cut in pay. Like the other guy said, if you don't want a cut in pay and you think THE MARKET and not something you simply imagine in your head, if you think the market will pay you better elsewhere, then that is your choice.

I'm not trying to write a book here but you can see how many come to this website without CDLs wondering how they can get in on that oilfield action. I don't blame them, either, wages around the country are low right now not only because machines are replacing people and not only because we have more people but mostly because all our manufacturing has gone overseas. It isn't as easy to replace an America truck driver with a foreigner as it is to have people in India doing our IT work- keep your eyes on the Mexican truckers program.

What's going to grow faster, the amount of horizontal drilling being done in America or the number of people getting their CDLs and coming to the oilfields? THAT more than anything else is going to determine our wages.