The Price For A Barrel Of Oil - 1408 Words

Currently the price for a barrel of oil is around 33 American dollars. However, around 2010 the price of a barrel was approaching 150 American dollars, which caused the drivers of crude oil to lose money. In addition, everyone had to pay more for gasoline, but now it has become a more reasonable price. In Michigan, the company named Atlas began to struggle when gasoline prices reached an all-time high with their employees. The employees typically were paid by how many loads they were able to drop into the ground. Due to the gasoline prices being so high, the drivers were losing money every week because no one was purchasing the gasoline. Therefore, many employees that had been with the company for several years started to leave and go with†¦show more content†¦Now granted the new employees would only make a smaller percentage extra per load, but it was better than making less than $300 a day. At times, the drivers were making $150 a day and putting in a full eight hours, whi ch is very frustrating when they had previously been making a higher amount with less amount of time spent in the truck. In order for the company to survive, the resource department then decided that the cost of healthcare would be cut as well as sick days and vacation time. Therefore, the company in essence did not lose a lot of money by changing how to pay the employees. They just changed the overall benefits to the drivers. The company decided to offer an insurance that is either an HMO or a point of service plan, thus saving the company millions of dollars in healthcare costs. However, the drivers lost the ability to go to any physician because the PPO plan was taken away. Furthermore, the company would take away the drivers vacation days before for their sick days, thus ensuring the driver could not take a vacation. On the other hand, the drivers were still paid around the same amount of money that they used to be making, but the benefits that were offered were cut dramatically. Therefore, the employee had to weigh out whether it was worth having a better health insurance and vacation time to how much