My Jobs: BRT: Fired

I was fired for refusing to brake the law: May 30, 2002

On May 30, 2002, my supervisor, at Brent Redmond Transportation, fired me because I refused to work a 24 + hours shift without sleeping. This is against the law and very dangerous.

I have to take you back to the week before to tell you about the things that happened before that led up to this fateful day. On the Monday, the week before, I left my house in Fresno and drove to Dinuba. There I dropped my empty trailer at the customer and hooked to a pre-loaded trailer. Then I headed for Phoenix Arizona with this four drop load of frozen Mexican Food.

First of all, you can not drive from Fresno to Phoenix in one shot. It is 600 miles and legally can not be driven in the 10 hours the way D.O.T. laws are written. As a truck driver, you are limited to the number of hours you can drive in a day, and how many hours you can work in a day, doing non driving duties. Never the less, I made the trip and made it look legal. I got less than the required amount of sleep, eight hours of sleep is required, before I am allowed to drive the truck again. I then started making my deliveries.

I had a 2am at Basha's in Chandler, 4am at Costco in Tolleson, 6am at McLane's in Phoenix, and 8am at another place in Phoenix. I got to the first stop, Basha's, at 1:30am and checked in. I waited until 3:30am they still had not given me a door. I was just sitting in the holding area waiting for them to give me a door to back into. At 3:30am I had to leave to deliver to the next appointment at 4am, it was a 32 mile drive. Most of the load went to Costco and if you are late, they will refuse it and make you reschedule the delivery for the next day.

I left and made it to Costco right on time, an made the delivery. I went to my third, and forth stop with no problem. Then I went back to the first stop, Basha's, and was able to get that load off too.

Fast forward to May 29, 2002. I was in the yard and looking at my pay-stub for that trip and saw that there was no extra pay for the extra stop, or extra miles that I did that day. I asked Pat if he could add a little something for the effort. He told me that I make enough money, and that this is a business we run here, if you don't like it, find something else. He asked me what the definition of a stop was. I said it was going to a customer and attempting to make a delivery. The customer refusing the load is not my fault. He told me that to qualify for a stop, and getting paid the $9 for the stop, the trailer doors must open up and you must back up to a dock, and freight must be unloaded. I told him I was there for two hours to attempt this delivery, and to wait any longer would make me miss the next delivery to Costco and instead of being empty in the morning, I would have to lay-over and resume the deliveries the next day. These warehouses are only open for a few hours a day. I smiled, and told him thanks and left.

The next day I got up at 5am in Lodi, started work at 6am and drove to Sacramento to make my delivery at Raley's. I made the delivery and was finished just after 10am. Then drove to Morgan Hill to pick-up mushrooms. I got to my pick-up at 2pm. I had a 4pm appointment. I found out that this load had five drops, all over the Los Angeles Basin, starting at 1am.

Mushrooms are very important to Brent Redmond, this is the biggest account they have and more drivers have been fired messing up on these loads than all other loads combined. The thing about mushrooms is that when you load them, you must drive straight down to Los Angeles and deliver as fast as you can get there, all of the customers are waiting for them. You must finish the load, you can not sleep until the truck is empty. All mushrooms are loaded in the afternoon to evening time, and you must run all night and into the morning hours to make all of your deliveries before you can sleep.

I don't like running all night, and making deliveries until after the sun comes up and still not sleep. But, it is even worse when you have been up all day working on the last load, before you pick up the mushrooms, and then work all night.

So basically, I had been working since 6am, unloaded in Sacramento a little after 10am, drove to Morgan Hill at 2pm, I would have loaded at 4pm, done by 5-6pm, drive to Los Angeles before 1am, deliver the first stop, and make four more deliveries by maybe 6-7am. Which means that my boss expected me to work for over 24 hours straight without sleep.

I had done it before, several times for him, but I was tired of it, and wasn't going to do it anymore. This is illegal, and unsafe.

I sent him a message on the computer that said " Since Pat doesn't want to pay me to do my job properly, I will not brake the law for him anymore. When D.O.T. regulations say it is time to shut down, I will shut down and get my sleep." He sent a message back "Don't play games! Are you going to take the load or not? I will find another truck to do this load."

I called him on the phone and told him that I was here at the mushroom place and ready to get the load, but when my hours of service was up I would shut down, whether I was empty or not. He told me to bring the truck to the yard. I drove to the yard, parked the truck and walked in. Pat looked at me and told me to clean out my truck. Not another word was spoken.

They can't fire me because I told them that I would not brake the law for them, but they did. They gave me my last check right then and I called my wife to pick me up in Hollister at the yard.


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