Companies most mentioned as Hostile Work Environment for women
May 22, 2009 by Truckdrivernews · 10 Comments
While searching around for more information on the net about men trainers raping, and sexually assalting, women while/during their training. It seems like two companies are always mentioned. CRST Vans from Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52406 and CR England from Salt Lake City, UT, 84120.
I really don’t know too much information about either of the companies. But, CR England was a few years ago caught up in a scam with their truck training. I made a mistake and went to work here and made the very long bus ride to New Jersy for orientation. Got off the bus and got over to the terminal, heard some horror stories and called a cab went to bus station and bought a ticket back home.
Well, I am going to start off by going through C.R. England. Looking at their website, I see a scam that is still in operation today. SCHOOL REFRESHER courses offered, why does a student driver need a refresher course (Which cost more money)? From their website,
CR England has a school refresher program that has been designed to train individuals who have graduated from a certified truck driver training school, other than a CR England driving school
Which also includes drivers who have gotten their CDL from a school but ended up not going with any companies right off the bat.
Our school refresher program consists of a 17-day course that will familiarize you with CR England’s company policies and procedures. This program will also refresh you on basic safe driving skills in a tractor-trailer.
But, cost you The school refresher program requires a payment of both tuition and a processing fee.:
* Processing Fee – A processing fee of $500 is non-refundable and must be paid upon arrival at the CR England facility; we accept MasterCard, Visa, and Discover Card.
* Tuition – Tuition is $995. This may be financed and deducted from your check for $55 per week.
After successful completion of our refresher program you will be hired and begin your on-the-job training. After which you have ALREADY spent GOD only knows how much in going to a truck driving school already.
You will be assigned a certified Phase I trainer. You will be with this trainer for 30 days. You will be paid $61.43 per day, which equates to $430 a week. There will be 4 learning modules you will need to complete during this part of your training. At the end of this training, you will be given a road evaluation and attend a one day certification program. At this point you gain “Certified Driver” status.
You will now move into Phase II training. For 60 days you will be 2nd seat with an independent contractor. This will give you the opportunity to observe our lease program up close and gain additional driving experience. You will be paid 12 cents per mile for all truck miles, pickup and drop pay and detention. (The average pay will be $450 to $600 per week) You will be required to complete four learning modules during this phase of your training.
Once you have completed your training program you can choose your own career path. Seems like they push the Lease Operator path the most. Which yea, this is probably true, but this is no more than a glorified company driver with no benefits. This is my first red flag about this company already. They want you to pay for their new truck, plus the fuel and insurances etc.
Allegations, of rape and sexual assault, harassment in this company are pretty high according to doing just a little research on Google. Sexual Harassment is very serious, let alone rape. If these allegations are true, then this defiantly would not be a good choice for a new female driver to look into.
Now to get onto CRST Vans. This by looking at their website is on the same order as C.R. England. From CRST website:
Interested in the outstanding pay and benefits that come with being a team driver, but think you have to be part of an existing team? Think again, because at CRST Van Expedited, we will match you with a co-driver who lives in your area.
Just mentions a co-driver does not say it will be of same sex. This is totally wrong, and should NOT be allowed. Also by reading there website they sound like a stable company. Until you start looking around on the web.
35 cases of harassment against CRST move forward
Would have been more, but a lot of women didn’t make it in time to report or add in on this claim. There will be more cases I am sure, especially if these are proven and dealt with.
This will be being discussed in the next few weeks more and more. Because this is a very big problem in this industry and it needs to be dealt with severity and fast. Companies found guilty of hiding information on this should be closed, fined and told they could never hire drivers again.
Women should not be in fear while doing jobs. They should not be teamed with male drivers. And why are married couple who want to drive with each other separated while in training? More to come in later post I am sure..
© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.
Jason this is an outstanding piece of investigative writing and shows why we need more independent trucking news outlets. The fact that this information is so readily available only proved the major trucking media cares more for their hostile environment advertisers, than they do for the safety of women drivers that these media outlets help recruit.
Thankyou for standing up for the drivers of America.
Damian
Well, actually if you hadn't sent me the information…it would have been a lot harder of a job! Thanks Damian!
I appreciate you guys writing about this topic. I was just made aware of the CRST suit but know of several other companies this exact conduct is rampant in.
The CRST article put the Trucking Industry shame in a nutshell for all to see.
What is most disgusting is the Female Judge who is so out of touch, but like many Women I dealt with during my student trucker drama I found many Women in authority positions are the least trained and have a total lack of true concern about what is going on.
This is by no means a reflection on all men.
Some really nice men have helped men learn with no strings attached, no badgering or harrassment.
Unfortunately though the bad apples are protected by the majority who don't speak up when they she someone female or male being harmed.
Thanks again for being big enough men to stand up and speak up
Jason, my researcher didn’t find your personal experiences. Those came from you. And more people need to break the culture of silence on these hostilities & scams.
If a bridge was out & people were crashing into the river, truckers would not just keep on driving & say nothing.
And drivers must stop the silence when they see these scams & hostilities. Corporations promise a bridge to financial & personal happiness, but instead leave peoples emotional & financial lives crashed, ruined & swept down the river.
When the bridge in Minneapolis fell down & crashed people into the river, people & the media were outraged. And people were held accountable.
We need as drivers & Media to show the same outrage when trucking corporations bridge to job security collapses into hostility & financial ruin for the drivers.
Good for you Jason for warning others and being among the first to say , “The Bridge is Out”. Your helping to not only prevent countless pain & suffering, but also break the grip of corporate trucking on the government, the legal system, & Trucking Media.
I'll be looking into this in a much greater detail . . . I agree that these two companies keep "popping" up when it comes to these allegations. We will definitely be doing a show about this in the near future on BTR …. great post . . .
I bet there are thousands of complaints filed, not only on these two companies but on several companies. This is a problem that needs to be addressed, and not a problem we need to sit on a burner somewhere. This should be right up there with the parking issue.
These women are only out here to do a job, the same damn job you and myself do. They should not have to go through this. I hope the accused are fried for this.
I drive for crst and know of one case where a female was raped by her male trainer and he still was working for the company long after that.
I do have a question that maybe someone can answer. I've heard high level people in crst constantly talk about what other companies are doing about cutbacks and that they've reduced there drivers pay by 1 or 2 cents and crst has said they havent had to do that.
My question is this if you got hired at say 32 cents and have been there a year and earned a 2 cent raise how can a company take that back legally? Another question is how can a company make you pay them 2 cents for the per-diem program when you've told them you dont want to be in it?
This is not my website, but my husband and I were also badly treated by H and R transport in Canada after being recruited on the PNP programme from england.
We returned to the UK broke and depressed after not getting the miles we were promised, and being treated very badly when we complained.
This company is ripping foreigners off who refuse to bend over and take the rubbish.
Do you know if the Canadian Government pay the companies any kind of a fee to recruit temporary foreign OTR truck drivers?
My hubby also had to exchange his British truck licence for a Canadian one, which involved having training and taking the test… al arranged by the company with a final cost to us of over $2,000.
Does the Government pay the training costs to the company?
http://cathincanada.blogspot.com
That is the website, but I am not referring to sexual abuse, just bullying of foreign (European) workers.