In a victory against dispatchers everywhere who push their drivers to use up every one of their available hours regardless of their health or fatigue level, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has ruled that a Washington State carrier must pay one of its drivers $20,000 after suspending him for refusing to drive while sick.
The incident occurred when the driver, a 25-year veteran, told his company that he was too sick to drive. His company, Oak Harbor Freight Lines, retaliated by suspending him without pay. The driver then went to OSHA who helped him file the lawsuit.
This was not the first time OSHA has slapped Oak Harbor with a fine for violating the safe operating rules put in place by the Surface Transportation Safety Act. In fact, OSHA found that even it’s in the company’s attendance policy to encourage drivers to keep working despite being sick or tired. According to OSHA, they have told Oak Harbor to change their policies in the past, but the company has not complied.
“Forcing ill or tired drivers behind the wheel puts their lives and the lives of others at risk,” said an OSHA administrator. “Oak Harbor’s continued refusal to revise its attendance policy shows a reckless and callous indifference to employees’ rights and public safety.”
In addition to paying the driver for his suspension time and paying the $20,000 in punitive fees, the carrier was also instructed to remove any negative comments from the driver’s personnel file which may have been put there as a result of the refusal to drive, the suspension, or the ensuing lawsuit.
Next Story: Suicide-By-Truck Survivor Charged With Multiple Crimes
Source: overdrive, auburnreporter, workerscompensation
It’s about time drivers had a clear cut case to prove to companies that we cannot be forced to drive. I have nearly lost my job for being too ill to drive before. I wanted to work, I needed to earn a paycheck after all. My dispatch acted like I was committing a crime! I faxed the company a letter from my doctor to prove that I was under doctor’s orders to stay home but that made them act even worse. I finally told my dispatcher I would just fax the letter to the state, dot, and their insurance company to stop the harassment. They sent some guys to get the truck. Two days later I was released for work. I had to have my wife drive me three hours to get back in a truck. They threaten to take the cost of retrieving the truck out of my check. I laughed and told them I wish they would because they would see a lawsuit. I hope drivers can show their dispatch a copy of this article and stop the bull.
Nice. $200,000 would have been nicer.
This sounds more like a cultural problem imbedded at this company. Management has learned to disregard the physical/mental state of the workers, as well as to dismiss requests from workers out of hand. The focus of management is only that a task must be performed at the greatest efficiency with the least cost.
This type of management strategy is self destructive to the long term solvency of the company – however – the cost of litigation, back pay, fines, and penalties are negligible in the amount of damages awarded, and do not serve as an deterrence to other companies who act in a similar manner.
You’re so right Jim S, but it seems like we have a lot of dispatchers in many of today’s trucking companies who act the same and/or worse to drivers. Perhaps this case will help solve that problem, but please don’t hold-your-breath on it.
Very true! This was nothing more than news worthy, the fine was ridiculously small! I remember being forced by a company (I drove for) to run two log books, I remember telling them there was no way I could pick up the freight in a safe and timely manner and that I definitely couldn’t deliver on time. So you know what they did? They would have another driver pick up my freight and drop it at the yard, and then order me to pick it up and deliver it! I was eventually fired for being late too many times by the terminal manager. That companies name was Decker transport. But a month after I was fired they got bought out by Pam transport. Pam seems to have cleaned up Decker big time though. A guy I used to work with said he was surprised how much better they treat there drivers now. IDK though.
What a change. I drove for that company back in the 70’s. Was a good place to work then.
This goes on more than people think. Dispatchers trying to drive the truck from there desk behind a computer. It needs to be stopped and more drivers need to raise heck about it. Calling you on your cell phone while your asleep , sending message after message to the truck while it’s moving or your asleep. I think if more drivers say enough is enough then changes have got to happen. Stop the dispatch hers from driving the truck, all you have to say is I am driving this truck you aren’t.
I had a rookie dispatcher once and I guess she thought she was a real hard ass, would send me 20 messages in 10 minutes, call me till I would pull over and answer her, and all to ask me some question that didn’t need to be asked. Our company assigned dispatchers to trucks not the drivers, so the next time I was at a terminal I found a guy with an old decent truck found out who his dispatcher was, and his dispatcher approved the switch.
I used to work for a company that would call and send a message over the satellite 5-6 hours after being told I was going on break. That stopped when they found out I was serious when I told them I ahd to restart my break since they interrupted it.
One winter when I was driving for Crete, the state of Iowa didn’t actually close the freeway due to the ice, but they told folks that if they were driving on it & got into trouble, they wouldn’t come out to help them get back on the road. I told my dispatcher I was shutting down at a truck stop just before the bad stretch of interstate & I was told that I couldn’t do that, that other drivers were getting through just fine. I messaged back that I’d be happy to clean out my truck there at the truck stop & they could put another driver in it, but I wasn’t going to drive when I felt it was unsafe. They finally shut up & when the roads were passable, I got back on the road. In the first 5 miles, I saw at least 50 trucks jacknifed & on the shoulders & the median, including a Crete truck!! About time these companies get told that it’s not ok to force drivers to drive in any unsafe condition, whether it be bad roads or fatigue or illness! I applaud this decision.
Didn’t even know OSHA was still a thing. Glad someone defrosted them so they can make things a little more fair.
OSHA spends most of its time harassing small, non-union shops and leaves us to the DoT.
I would not settle for less than $100 ,000…and also sue the dispatcher for $100,000
Dispatchers……….I’m glad I got out.
Every planner , every company would be charged nonstop if truth was exposed! But they’ll hide all the ” free time”!!!
Hello. Driving kills more people than… If you’re too sick to get out of bed, nobody can force you to drive. If you’re too medicated and judgement is so impaired that you can be coerced by overzealous dispatchers, then they need to be reprimanded. $20K is an absurd message when little harm was done. The potential exists every time we turn the key.
The point is that he was punished for not driving. The harm is that by not punishing these companies a lot of harm will be done.
I know many companies who have done this with my husband for the past 25 years. It’s all about the dispatchers, then they put blame on the drivers when loads don’t make their appointments.
My hand was injured in an accident a year ago, and have had two surgeries on that hand since then, the last was 8 weeks ago. I don’t have strength in that hand, but the doctor has declared me at maximum medical improvement, and approved me for return to work. Of course this is just what the insurance company wanted, so they could end my disability benefit.
My question is how does a truck driver handle an 18 wheeler over the road with only one healthy hand and the other measured at less than 1/2 strength ?
My wife and I drove for a company who has a terminal out of Portland and we were driving in Washington and Oregon. This company (and there are more like this in this area) forces drivers to drive in weather that is too hazardous to drive in (i.e. deep snow, compact snow/ice and black ice). I lost my job with them because I refused a load because of black ice conditions existed and my wife the next day was coming back from a run and hit black ice, scared her real bad and someone else chained up for her and the company fired her for not being professional. Osha would not lift a finger for either one of us. Glad this driver had gotten something with their help.
Oh yeah and I forgot, there is something in the FMCSA that if the driver thinks that it is too hazardous to be out driving, then he has the right to park the vehicle until it becomes safe to drive again. They don’t think that way in this state.
No a lot of companies don’t want to follow that. I have spent my entire career with shutdown companies. A lot of people might laugh at guys like CRST but I have never once been questioned when I said it was either too unsafe or I was sick. In fact sometimes I have gotten upset when they do a mass shutdown along certain routes when I still feel safe to drive.
When I drove for JB Hunt and told dispatch I felt the road was too bad to continue, I was never questioned. Like a lot of others, JB even mandates a company shutdown from 6PM New Year’s Eve until , I think it was 8AM New Year’s Day.
When I refused to drive vehicles that would not pass a Level-1 inspection, I was laid-off. They said I have inadequate experience and they hired me by mistake. Who should I complain to? I talked to NHTSA and they told me it was a labor sue and I have to talk to a lawyer who practices employment law. I called the only lawyer in town who does practice employment law and he told me that before I give him any details, I have to pay a $200 consultation fee. Since I lost my job, I have to move out of my house because I can no longer afford rent.
I would love to be compensated any amount.
Benjamin, I hope you’ll do a little research and nail that company! You deserve better, but it will take some work on your part. For example, try contacting the Dept. of Labor in your home state and/or the state where that company exists. They should be able to assist with info about their whistle-blower protection laws and you might not even have to hire a lawyer. Good luck!
They should of gotten a severance package deal too. Tell this company to go and kiss my A##.
This has to be one of the most abused tactics in the industry. I think that the $20,000 the driver got was only a slap on the wrist for that company. I live in Canada and there are company’s like that here also and the said thing is that to many drivers will do what the company wants in fear that they would loose their jobs. I got out of driving after 44 years of safe driving, because I did not drive while being to sick or on mess that would impair my driving. I went back to school at 65 and now a driver instructor and safety and complence with a company and I would not let any driver get behind the wheel impaired in any form. Note to all drivers don’t put up with any bull from a company that does this. Be safe
You know if there was ever a real truck drivers strike again the Fed’s would make it illegal for us to strike. A friend of mine works the railroads and two years ago when they voted to strike the president ordered a 60 day renegotiation which meant they couldn’t strike.
carriers don’t care- these fines are only the cost of doing business… they are nothing but an incentive for the carrier to push the other drivers to make up for that fine..
I have driven while sick but not sick enough where I couldn’t drive. In my 40 plus years of driving I can count the times on one hand where I was not able to drive. I look at it this way,if I have a head ache am I going to stop driving,or a chest cold thats just getting started ? How sick am I really? I have had head colds that have given me runny nose and eyes that have had the ability to stop me but haven’t because I was home at the time but if I was out I would have taken some cough meds and rested till it was over,usually in a few hours.I am glad to see that this driver stood his ground and said no to them and maybe one day they and all other companies will get the hint that we are not machines.
If you have been out here any amount of time you know there are good and bad dispatchers as well as drivers. I am glad the driver got compensation but that won’t change the way dispatchers operate. The amount needs to be much larger to get their attention.
Haa haaaa !
If he is still driving for them, he should expect short trips, heavy loads, and long waits between dispatches. He will be sent to places that take forever to unload and load and to big cities like Chicago, LA, or NYC.
Not nearly enough of a fine to be a deterrent. It just proves that the law is still treating carriers with kid gloves. The fine should have been $100,000 because of their poor record.
Unfortunately we are in an industry that has been regulated to death against the driver,and ,almost always with no repercussions to the companies and greedy shippers and receivers…many of us have actually gone backwards in our pay for the past several years.I say the next regulations should be to revamp the trucking industry by reworkinf dot and the federal enforcement agencies….its almost always not the driver that is at fault…we only want a job/paycheck
The standard has got to change, fatigue and illness can have a serious impact – We ALL should be concerned about the cultural norms within the trucking / transportation industry. Unrealistic deadlines and overworked employees should not be the norm.. As a driver, we must trust that the people operating these large vehicles are in top condition always!