$455 per week is the lowest amount that you can be paid.

I don't know about you, but i work 61.25 hours a week. (im always right up against my 70 hours clock for 70 in 8 days)

 

Dude, that law is still active. It was last revised in 2009.

I know that trucking companies are very good at screwing drivers and employees over when it suits them. However, do you seriously think that the multi-billion dollar megacarriers could get away with violating a federal wage law over the long term without SOMEONE noticing??

Congress themselves are well aware of how drivers are paid in the industry. You can watch them discussing it and the HOS with the leaders in the trucking world, including the man who owns the company I work for.

Obviously there is something in the law that allows them to pay us the way they do legally. If it's not what I quoted above, it's somewhere.

You could hire a lawyer that specializes in labor law, and I'm sure he could tell you exactly what areas of the law apply in this situation. But believe me, you're not the first person to scour over the labor laws looking for something that would force companies to pay us what we're actually worth. I'm willing to bet we've all done that at one time or another when ticked off.

If companies were required, by law, to pay truck drivers overtime, you can bet that would've been made public and settled a long time ago.

Now, I 100% agree with the fact that we should be paid by the hour. Mileage pay, by all definitions, is kind of a rip off, since we're working a LOT while the truck is motionless. Honestly, I think the only reason why the industry went to mileage pay so many years ago is because there is no way to verify that a driver was actually doing work when logged "on duty". Hell, you know that if people could get away with logging on duty all 14 hours of the day and get paid for it, they would, regardless of whether or not they were actually working.

Believe me, I would love for someone to come up with a system where we're all actually paid in proportion to our contribution to the economy, which is beyond measure.

And besides, let's say that they did change things around and pay us by the hour. You know exactly what would happen... We'd be paid minimum wage of 7.25 an hour. Doing it that way, that works out to $290 for 40 hours plus 30 hours at $10.88 for $326.40. That means that a 70 hour week would pay us $616.40 per week gross. I've only been a driver for two years and make way more than that on a normal basis.

Obviously we're worth WAY more than that, but if the trucking companies were forced to move to hourly pay, that's exactly what they'd do and we all know it.

 

Well, then all I can say is feel free to file a lawsuit against your current employer for not paying you overtime. I'm willing to bet a lawyer will tell you that you have no case though, since the law I quoted in my earlier post is still 100% active.

It's true that many companies have gotten away with little things over the years. But I seriously doubt that truck drivers are collectively so dumb that we just completely missed that we should be paid overtime.

I'm not saying that our current pay structure is good by any means. It's not. We're not paid nearly enough to compensate for our impact on the nation as a whole.

However, just because it's not morally right doesn't mean it's illegal. Maybe one day it'll change for the better. But just as a matter of fact, being paid by the mile and nothing else is 100% legal. At least according to the Department of Labor.

 

Never once did I say that I didn't want more money, or that I want to keep the status quo. Believe me, if I could change it, I sure as hell would!

I'm just merely stating the fact that the way the mega carriers currently pay is 100% legal according to the department of labor. I didn't say it was right or fair, but it is legal. They are not obligated today us time and a half, it's really that simple.

Should they pay us more? Absolutely.
Do I wish they would charge more and drive up the freight rates? Of course.
Should I be paid extra for working nearly double what most other people do? Sure!
Is the way they pay us illegal? No.

While I definitely agree that truckers, as a whole, should be fighting against a whole lot of things that are just wrong, it would be pointless and a horrible waste of our time to try to fight something that is not illegal.

If, somehow, we could get EVERY driver to go on strike and demand that they change how they pay us, that could possibly work.

But advising people on here to demand overtime pay, especially the new guys who are not educated on the industry and are probably too gung-ho, is a very bad idea. As it stands now, demanding overtime pay from a carrier is just going to get you on a fast track to unemployment, and changing carriers won't make a difference because they are not breaking the law as it is written.

 

Most truck drivers are exempt from overtime laws

http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp

 

Well,

my link is effective in 2009.

 

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs19.htm

seems cut and dried to me ......