Mega-carrier Celadon Group is under fire from a class action lawsuit filed by three of its former employees who are alleging that the carrier unlawfully withheld money from their paychecks which resulted in the drivers earning less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, Drivers William Blakley, Helen Blakley, and Kimberly Smith all drove for Celadon in 2015, but all left after 4 months on the job or less. While there, they were considered independent contractors, but claim they should have been considered employees.
The lawsuit claims that during their brief period of employment with Celadon, the carrier withheld money from their paychecks to pay for trailer lease payments, fuel, trailer lock, glad hand lock, tolls, Qualcomm use fees, and other fees. According to the lawsuit, these “unlawful deductions” caused them to be paid less than the federally mandated $7.25 minimum wage.
Smith and the Blakleys are seeking pay, benefits, and damages. They are also filing for class action status which would open up the suit to other current and former Celadon employees and independent contractors.
Source: gobytrucknews, ibj, theindianalawyer, swartzlegal, justia
Sock it to’em. Hard.
Once these greedy, dishonest companies start having to pay the price for their sordid ways in court, the rest of them will start falling like dominoes.
Driving truck is a hard job. It should be awarded pay consummate with its day to day difficulties and stresses.
American greed make them pay better yet put them out of bussiness
Well if they signed up for the lease purchase that was on them. The high cost of those programs benefits the carrier only. I went through the lease program at Prime back in the mid 90’s and eventually bought the truck and promptly used it as a trade in on a new truck. All the things they listed are items that are needed for doing business as an O/O. All those deductions should have been in there lease agreement with the carrier and if so they will lose their suit.
I think you are the first and only O/O that I’ve heard to successfully paid off a lease vehicle with Prime…or any where else for that matter. What was your secret?
Exactly. Read your contract. If you signed it, you accepted those terms.
I agree. I am in a lease purchase, but I do as good or better than I did as a company driver. I plan to trade my truck in when my lease is up. Half way there. All those fees are needed to operate.
Actually, no, all those things are NOT required for doing business as an O/O.
I drive as an O/O for a company right now where:
We run paper logs (no Qualcomm fee).
We are not required to have PrePass or EZPass.
We are not charged trailer leaee/rental/usage fees.
We are not required to have or pay for glad hand or trailer locks.
We pay our fuel, tolls, maintenance escrow, plates, permits and taxes.
Company pays lumpers, trailer maintenance/repair/plates/registration and reefer fuel.
I make out pretty darn good and get along just fine without that bloody Qualcomm in my truck. We do our business by email and phone.
what company are you with and do the lease or the strictly O/O
Agree, if they were in a lease purchase deal they will lose.
I’m going to be real and honest. I’m definitely not one to anyone’s ability to think, but lease purchase programs simply just simply don’t work. I know because I used to do them and every last one of them, 5 to be exact, all failed. With all of the social media nowadays and as much as truck drivers like to talk and spread news, I’m still in disbelief that the word of lease purchase deals hasn’t resonated with truck drivers as not ever working. There’s more than enough stories of struggling drivers out there because of lease purchase deals and you would think that the drivers of today would stand up to carriers wanting to “prey” on unfortunate drivers who aren’t in position to buy their own truck or who have good credit by not signing up for those programs. I learned the hard way and is now doing it the right way and the hard work of recovering from those times has paid off. That’s how I was raised.
What I have noticed companies “preying ” on naive new drivers. Have witnessed first year drivers being hooked into lease programs.
Some of the companies make it so undesirable to drive company trucks, drivers will gladly sign lease agreements.
These same companies tout how important safety is. Yet they will sell a lease to some 6 month driver. UnGoverned tell’m go make a bunch of money.
It leads to a failure on so many levels.
You know, I’m kinda on the caveat emptor side, too. I get where you’re coming from, and I have yet to fall for a scam. Nevertheless, we do have laws against scams and deceptive practices, and most of these lease deals seem to fall into that camp. I mean, should we legalize scamming?
Lease purchase worked for me.leased it.bought it.took it to landstar and never looked back.
Only took 5 tries to figure out that it wasn’t gonna work?
to many people jump on these lease purchase deals with out reading the fine print. So they go into these agreements blind as a bat. but that’s their own fault. I almost did a lease purchase deal with Celadon, but I could never discuss the lease, the truck, or any other items I felt were important to know before I made the trip to Indy. My said, whats the problem, you come out here and you have to take the truck that available. She never understood, that I wanted to discuss the lease, it had nothing to do with what trucks were available. I had question, but couldn’t get any answers at all. So I did what most people should do, Head for the Hills… as fast as you can… It was very clear, that they are used to getting many drivers to come in and be lead around by their nose…. This is most likely what happened to the people now suiting them! Unfortunately, you can bet Celadon had those bases covered pretty good by now.. If they signed on as an independent contractor, then I’m afraid they don’t have too much to stand on. Not every businessman or women makes over minimum wage day in a day out. Actually Minimum wage doesn’t even apply here. My suggestion to them, is DON’t spend a lot of money trying to prove them wrong. Take your heart out of the decesiuon process and except it as a valuable lesson. Now go out and find a professional carrier, that’s willing to treat as such. I would suggest talking to Schneider and their no-dispatch program, where you get to pick all your own loads by using their load board. That’s the direction I’d at least start. Just so you know, I have at least 40 years of professional experience under my belt. I was an O/O for several years and I was also the VP & GM for a few larger OTR carriers. So I know both sides of the lease purchase program..
So what are you going to do come dec 17 2017 when you have to have elogs? Everyone says it wont happen but got to fmca web. It has passed. All cmv over 30k lbs gvwr
Has to have elogs by 12/17/2017
Well please include me those folks screwed me out of $2500 and the junk from rent s wreck never went anywhere except back and forth to the repair shop
These three would be smarter by suing independently because class action lawsuits brings claimants very little money while lawyers make out like bandits.
How do I get in touch with your attorney? They did the same thing to me.
I’m betting if you read the contract it was all in there. You can’t Sue if you agreed to those terms.
The lease purchase driver is a company driver that pays 100% his/her FICA ,Federal and State if applicable. Self Employment lease purchase what ever you consider it, can be good I tried it and did okay. I was hauling Tankers and was able to pay off my Truck. I think these are ppl who are new to self employment and the lies that the trucking companies advertise one see .90 cpm and fuel surcharge and you get 1.05 a mile. Not realizing the break even point of their operation and Bills at Home.
The problem is A contractor can go elsewhere. If a company tells you where to go when to go and when not too. Your an employee.
A business may pay an independent contractor and an employee for the same or similar work, but there are important legal differences between the two. For the employee, the company withholds income tax, Social Security, and Medicare from wages paid. For the independent contractor, the company does not withhold taxes.
They will screw anyone I about lost everything I own because of them
I have always maintained that Drivers are the biggest giveaway artists in the US…nobody else works for free….and they hate Unions …all that they ever want is to be able to work longer hours…so the carrier can screw them out of more money…and work for a sub minimum wage…
Wake up drivers…only do the work that you are getting paid for!
I agree with the gist but facts are important, so here goes. Another large category of employees who work for free are teachers. While many drivers I’m sure hate unions, it was probably much more transportation companies than it was drivers who pushed unions out of the way in the 1980s with Ronnie’s help (sorry, I admittedly don’t know much about the history, but that’s my limited understanding of it). Drivers don’t want to work longer hours so they can sit longer in docks for no pay, it’s because they want to drive longer hours on interstates, where they make around $30/hour (or more, if they’ve played their cards right).
Where your post finally gets really factual is when you claim they work for a sub minimum wage. This is a well-documented fact. When you count all the hours they’re away from home when they go off to work, yes, they are earning less than minimum wage (especially considering that minimum wages are now rising to the $15/hour level in many areas of the country).
The gist—that in general drivers all too easily let companies walk all over them—I agree wholeheartedly with.
One thing to correct with your post, it was Carter who deregulated the airline and trucking industries. Other than that I agree with.
You can say that again, Steve. Though I don’t hate Unions, I just believe that we are adults here & shouldn’t need an organization to stand up for us. Also… Most drivers seems to prefer to work for free. Like; why don’t flat bedders get paid to secure the load?
Teachers are also underpaid & over worked; though they are in a union.
I myself didnt like lease programs so i went with company loan no money down. Had no issue’s ran 5 years. Paid truck off in 2 years. No buy out . Company paid my tolls lumpers,and no trailer milage and half of my medical on a 1099 schedule. Plus fuel surcharge. They kept me very busy as a solo driver. Actually its your F.M who can make or brake u depends on the drivers attitude.
If you don’t mind me asking, who did you drive for ?
Who was the company.
Lease-Purchase is a way to sucker drivers into taking all of the risk onto the drivers.
In other words, if the driver fails, the company gets the truck back. They then get to either put it into their company fleet or lease it out to the next sucker. Then they are covered by legal paperwork that frankly, nobody with less than a law degree can fully understand.
I took it out once. I lasted about a year. I tried it though because I didn’t have a lot of other concerns. I was unmarried, didn’t have any kids. Didn’t have a house at the time, not even a car. So I thought, “Why not. Let’s give this a go”.
It failed in just over a year. My lease failed because the pay-per-mile took into account regular driving habits. There was no margin for error calculated in. I had one breakdown that had me shutdown for four days (yeah, way down in Louisianan in some podunk town 30 miles from the nearest city – go figure) early on in my lease. It took me three months to recover from that downtime and actually start showing a profit again. A month after I had recovered, I had another breakdown – another one that had me down for another four days. (2004 Freightliner Columbia with a Detroit engine – whose engines had a documented [that I wasn’t aware of at the time] EGR problem.) It took me another three months to start showing a profit again. Then a third breakdown – this one found me turning the truck in and giving up. I lost the truck (which the company took back and consigned to their company-driver fleet), and had to quit the company all together and go look for another job (because low and behold, they had a 60-day clause in their contract that said I couldn’t work for them for 60 days after quitting the Lease-Purchase program).
Now imagine if I had house payments, car payment, and god forbid, kids to support. I would have been forced into bankruptcy and probably would have lost everything.
P.T. Barnum said it best. “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
You ask me, anyone who actually makes money in a Lease-Purchase program either is actually leasing from a good company (which we would all love to hear about!), or they just plain and simple got lucky.
Otherwise, Lease-Purchase is a joke. It places all of the risk squarely on the individual’s shoulders, and it seldom pays enough to justify the level of risk it demands.
Never lease a truck you shouldn’t have to buy a job
If these divers were doing a lease/purchase they are paid on 1099 and are NOT employees.
If they were driving company truck and were paid on W2,the company cannot hold out for the stated deductions.
As far as pay below the $7.25/hr. minimum wage ? When you are working under Federal HOS regs , you are exempt from minimum wage statues.
Wanna bet? Try going to work for Prime Inc. They make you buy all of your equipment. For reefer, you have to buy your load locks, your tire chains and so on. For flatbed, you have to buy your chains, straps and tarps. BEFORE you can take out your first load for them.
You’ll get all of this money back if you turn the stuff in when you quit, but any of it you lose or break, is on your nickle. But the real issue here is, who in the heck can afford about $200 (well over $500 for flatbed) just to start a new job.
Prime Inc apparently believes their employees come in rich. And if Prime Inc does it, you believe that a sleeze-ball company like Celedon does it.
What? Don’t like being coined as a sleeze-ball company, Celedon? Well, you ask a lot of drivers, if you’re being dragged into court over not properly paying your drivers, well…
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And if the shoe fits – yep. If you were honest and decent folk, people’d love you, not trying to rake your backsides over coals in a court of law.
Hi I went to CDL School in Pittston Oct 2015 and back then celadon drivers were not getting paid If u need an attorney stay away from these surrounding areas cause all these Attorneys r related There’s a attorney in Philadelphia that comes to Scranton as well as NJ Florida he has won against bigger trucking company his name is John Mifka his main office is in Philly also he has EEOC attorneys please use him GO GET THEM
THIS IS FOR MR looking for a attorney Hi I went to CDL School in Pittston Oct 2015 and back then celadon drivers were not getting paid If u need an attorney stay away from these surrounding areas cause all these Attorneys r related There’s a attorney in Philadelphia that comes to Scranton as well as NJ Florida he has won against bigger trucking company his name is John Mifka his main office is in Philly also he has EEOC attorneys please use him GO GET THEM
I’d be seriously surprised if minimum wage rules applied in these cases. And I’d give pretty good odds that, buried in the mountain of paperwork they signed on day 1, there was a form authorizing Celedon to bill them for that miscellaneous stuff. Pretty standard stuff, really.
Too many drivers fail to do their homework. Even a cursory amount of online research or conversation at truckstops should be enough to figure out that the number of drivers who take these lease purchase programs and succeed are VASTLY outnumbered by the ones who fail.
There are exceptions, but most companies run these programs to let an independent driver take on the risks and early issues that new trucks often come with, as well as give them a penalty-free driver to ground when freight is weak. A couple years later, the driver is lucky to break even, the bugs and recalls have been worked out, and it’s a company truck again. And drivers keep signing on to these things.
Their lease also states that they must provide enough miles to substain the truck and a paycheck 1500 mi a week don’t cut it
Gene and J Carter obviously have strong negative opinions which I respect their right to free speech. However the only persons that win on class actions and complaints such as the Celadon case will be the lawyers. The employees or in this case contractors signed an agreement that no doubt outlined their expenses that were to be deducted. IF there is settlement, it will be minor compared to what the lawyers will be paid.
They won’t see a penny. Celadon will find a way to beat the case.
I have over 50 years exp and get only $.34/ mile! Because of my age this was the only place that would talk to me!
TransAm Trucking is under a similar lawsuit. Werner lost their lawsuit for the same thing a few years ago which established precedent. If you’re a lease operator for a mega carrier and you’re not picking your own loads from their load board but rather having your loads assigned to you by the carrier, you are an employee with a truck payment and should be making at a minimum, minimum wage.
Does anyone knows how long after you leave Celadon Trucking. That you will get your money back out of your ascrow account. Have $1500 left called Celadon can’t get a call back.
Dag……
How do we join the lawsuit?
Celadon was a predatory company. They worked the books on drivers, then made virtual sharecroppers out of them. The closer to payoff, the less work you’d get, the more money you owed. I had a bumper to bumper warranty, i needed an inframe, I was covered, Celadon Charged me a year later, for a covered maintenance fee. They charged me for fuel, then took the tax break. After i lawyered up, they found a way to let me go. No, Celadon worked a crooked scheme, yet none have gone to jail,… Yet.