Minimum Wage Enforcement

Stop the guessing.........

http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/minwage.htm

 

The trucking industry is governed by a different set of laws regarding labor than the rest of the us economy. That is why the on duty not driving is compensation free. The trucking companies make good use of this as do shippers and receivers. There needs to be reform of this loophole. Call OOIDA and your congress rep. Make a case for workers working for free being unfair. Everyone can understand that. Go get em.

 

Go ahead and call OOIDA. This has been around a very long time and they have never looked at.

Guess it means they see no problem.

 

just a little bit of info for you all in USA, here in OZ just very very recently (this year) the government has passed legislation that will make companies pay more to employees and contractors (the amount is yet to be dicided) thier discission was based on safety. from the info available at this time it appears that the figure will be an increase of between a min of 10% up to a possible 30%. the government based thier discission on many factors one being a report from a professor that proved an increase in pay will reduce road accidents. sorry but thats all i remember about the situation. p.s woolworths/safeway are fighting tooth and nail to have the discission quashed as are other very very large truck companies, but i say f$$$ them look at thier yearly profit its in the millions they can afford to pay us correctly

 

What may sound good in a classroom may not work so well in the real world. It would have been much better if the professor had done an actual real world study where there were two groups. One that was paid more and the other with no change in compensation. Some people will push the envelope, no matter what. Others will coast through life.

 

You get paid by the mile, therefore you are paid nothing when the wheels aren't rolling. That's the way things are for OTR drivers. Yes, it should change. The government wants to put all these regulations on drivers for safety. They want less accidents? How about all they time spend at shippers and receivers? Waiting to be loaded or being required to count the freight being loaded....and logging it all as sleeper time? Then after 10 hours of twiddling thumbs you are fresh to drive 11 hours? Of course, you were supposed to sleeping in a truck that you can't idle...without an APU...Let's just sleep in a closet and see how much rest you get.
Paying drivers for that time is not what I'm after. I'm after not having OTR CPM drivers to do it at all. How about a high percentage of drop and hook for the OTR driver? Then pay those local hourly drivers to load and unload.
What's going to happen when they require electronic logs and the truck shuts down out of hours in the dock door? A dock another driver is waiting for to get loaded? That sounds like a big domino effect. That sounds like something's going to have to happen to change. That's the only way anything is going to change...when it's forced.

 

Some think that forcing carriers and owner operators to install EOBR's is a great idea. It will do nothing to improve safety. It will only increase the cost of doing business for truck owners. I don't know if the comment period has passed, but if you don't want to deal with the EOBR's then you need to contact the feds and your congressional representatives and tell them why you don't think that forcing owners to install them is a bad idea. A few of the major carriers want to make this a law rather than a regulation, which will make it much more difficult to change. It is a way for them to limit competition. I have no doubt that those supporting this legislation have a lot of stock in the manufacturer's of these computers.

 

I hate to say it, but it seems to me that's the attitude that keeps working people down. Shut up and do your job. If the right move for the company is to pay zero dollars an hour or eliminate the position ( the position of truck driver - in a trucking Co. ) why then, do other company's doing the same job pay by the hour and pay well ? As one colleague put it - it takes the burden off the driver who has no control over the business - and puts it on the dispatchers and customer serv. personnel, who as I tell my boss, should have a list of things like..... This plant has NEVER been open weekends before sending me on Saturday. Or "we won't load dented trailers" ( today ). Or - if you can't drive 600 miles in 8 hrs with 7 1/2 on your 14, they can't take you till next Tuesday. If we ( you ) don't fight that #%£^ now, waiting for the industry to be flush and sympathetic is pathetic.

 

Truck drivers are not exempted from the Fair Labor Standards Act as to minimum wage. The wage is calculated by taking the gross wages paid in a pay period and dividing it by hours worked. It is not calculated for each task, e.g., waiting at a dock. The pay for the entire pay period (e.g., weekly or bi-monthly, etc.) is what counts.