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

YES IT IS LEGAL NOW. the law we've been quoting is still active. It's under 29 USC 213.

(b) Maximum hour requirements


The provisions of section 207 of this title shall not apply with respect to—


(1) any employee with respect to whom the Secretary of Transportation has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to the provisions of section 31502 of title 49

That is quoted directly from the same site you're quoting. And if you go on to read 31592 of title 49, it states that the Secretary of Transportation is responsible for all of that.

You keep locking on to that section you're quoting. That section refers to people involved in interstate commerce (commerce between various states) and the production of good for commerce. We are neither. We are in the TRANSPORTATION industry, with separate rules and regulations. The law you're quoting refers to manufacturing and administrative areas of commerce, along with those who actually work in stores.

Your refusal to acknowledge the existence of a law does not make it suddenly nonexistent. The exemption for truck drivers is very clearly there, and is even stated on the same site you're using. Although I am much more inclined to take the word of the actual Department of Labor over a college website, both sites say the same thing.

Seriously, man. There are huge companies out there that spend MILLIONS of dollars paying an entire legal team to tell them what is and isn't legal for fear of being sued.

FedEx got away with classifying employees as 1099 because the employee/contractor argument has a lot of gray areas and still, to this day, isn't 100% clear.

Not paying people overtime when they are entitled to it is a WHOLE other matter. There is no #### way that the entire industry has skipped out on paying overtime and NOBODY knows about it. The Department of Labor would step in instantly. It's not like how we are paid is a big secret... Everyone knows. The reason why nothing has been done by anyone is because they way they pay us is LEGAL.

It's really that simple. You're implying that some big conspiracy exists that allows every motor carrier in the country to pay millions of drivers illegally and nobody knows about it or does anything about it. That's absurd. One single company getting away with something for awhile is one thing, but you're talking about an entire industry. It's just not possible.

And even if it was, it wouldn't matter, because truck drivers are still exempt from overtime laws. Period.

 

Yep. It sure does.

 

For anyone who is curious, here is a list of all of the FLSA exemptions as they are listed today. There actually are a whole lot of different job types that are exempt from overtime pay.

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

 

The current regs from DOL.Gov state that:
Section 13(b)(1) of the FLSA provides an overtime exemption for employees who are within the authority of the Secretary of Transportation to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to Section 204 of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, except those employees covered by the small vehicle exception described below. Thus, the 13(b)(1) overtime exemption applies to employees who are:

1. Employed by a motor carrier or motor private carrier, as defined in 49 U.S.C. Section 13102 (see Employer below);
2. Drivers, driver’s helpers, loaders, or mechanics whose duties affect the safety of operation of motor vehicles in transportation on public highways in interstate or foreign commerce.

If you are a driver employed by a motor carrier, you are exempt from overtime pay....no question about it.

 

And if, for the sake of argument, the entire industry was supposed to be getting overtime pay, our pay would go up approximately 40 percent. Don't you think the IRS would get involved immediately and make that happen so they could get their grubby little hands on 30 percent of that 40 percent?

 

Oh you bet they would. 30 to 40 percent tax increase from more than 3 million tax paying drivers? They'd be all over that like white on rice.

And as for the argument that one government agency can't overrule another one... The FMCSA is doing a pretty #### good job of doing whatever the hell they want, regardless of what anyone (including Congress) thinks about it. So yeah, if the DOL wants to defer to the MCA, they can do so anytime they want.

 

Guntoter and Joseph you're making it as easy as it gets. I'm not sure why a lot of people don't understand. On the other hand, how much are you grossing for the 61.25hrs/wk? That's for you Richter. A lot of people don't understand you, the employer, can't pay, the employee, what you're not getting. Everyone has to make a living.

 

I understand what you are saying but I think I disagree with it somewhat. If a company is paying a driver such low wage, why stay? There might not be a lot of good paying jobs out there for someone who is "unskilled" or even someone who is "skilled". But if I'm only going to make garbage money driving over the road, living out of a truck, then I'd just as soon flip burgers or clean toilets. There's just no way I'd live on the road, in a truck, for 500 bucks a week. There's just no way. I'd be home every night working a bs job locally than being a slave to some trucking company.

To say it's not the fault of the driver is so untrue. People need to take responsibility for the situations they are in. The attitude you are showing is why the wages, conditions etc... have deteriorated and continue to do so. People need to have respect for themselves and not say they don't have a choice etc... Because you always have a choice. The choices may not be good ones but regardless, you always do.

So when drivers complain about low wage or slave like conditions, I'm sorry but they put themselves in those situations. I applaud them for wanting to work and not get hand outs from Obama but......

 

$445 a week? Unemployment is $380 per week without kids, now that's not Rocket Science. You can be a seasonal dump truck driver making 15 bucks an hour working 30 hrs a week and make that while being home every night. If you can't make $150-$200 a day driving a truck somethings wrong.
No wonder they claim there's a "Driver Shortage". They just left the "Pay" out. It's more like a "Driver Pay Shortage" PERIOD!

 

When I was at Central they had this cont (with a U) call the terminal to complain we were "dispatching too soon". WTF? The manager asked: "well, we see your drivers logging off the dock and immediately dispatching, so they are still logged on the dock while they are out in the yard hooking up, they are not supposed to do that".

Truth be told, we kept on doing this, even worse, we were now exagerating it out of pure anger.

OTR companies get away with worse crap. Truck has to go to the shop? No problem! Go ahead a get a hotel room for two days, you won't see a dime from our part!