Hourly Driver Law

Truck drivers working under the DOT/FMCSA HOS are specifically exempted from REQUIREMENT to pay overtime pay after 40 hours in a week. States may have different laws. Employers and unions can negotiate different pay levels.

 

Trucking companies do what they want until they get caught. Kinda like Hillary so far.

 

As somebody pointed out, there is a difference between interstate commerce and "long haul", which the poster who uses the term probably means the same. Long haul is very subjective terminology. Does that mean travelling far enough that under no circumstances can the driver return to the terminal without taking a 10 hour break, or driving as least that far in one direction? Driving from Los Angeles to the Bay Area would require being out overnight, but if the carrier never hauled interstate, and paid hourly, they would not be exempt from paying overtime. However a company in New Jersey going into Brooklyn, even though round trip may be as high as 50 miles would be exempt from paying ot.

 

You are slightly flawed in your example, if the carrier was moving interstate freight, even if the driver never left the state and came home every night, still gets the OT exemption. It is the freight you move, not where you move it that counts. To qualify for the OT exemption a motor carrier only has to engage in some form of interstate commerce, which pulling out of a port, even local, would be interstate. They even exempt the mechanics and support staff from OT at regulated motor carriers.

If you read the link I posted earlier in this thread to the FLSA website, it explains this and all the other conditions that can trigger the exemption. If they were not union or trying to compete with union carriers companies like UPS and FedEx could get away with not paying OT to their local package drivers, dock workers, and mechanics just because some of the freight is interstate (which also includes international by definition).

 

I guess you missed the part where I said "the carrier never hauls interstate". I was specific that it is the carrier, not the driver.

 

I don't see how it's considered interstate. If it doesn't cross state lines.

I always thought that was considered inTRAstate.

 

Where I work in PA, we are on straight time.... sometimes it sucks. Most of the time I'm happy about it.

 

I'm local, home every night, cross into NJ from PA 5 times a week. and all straight time baby!

 

318.9 million people in the USA as of 2014.

And 4 million people are getting a raise?

Yippie!

 

If the freight actually never left the state then yes it would be intrastate, but in reality how often does that happen? Especially in a port city like LA, most of the freight out of there came from out of the country, which is also included in the definition of interstate. Just because the driver in the example didn't leave the state, or even the local area does not mean he is not part of the interstate chain. Here is the definition of interstate commerce straight from the FMCSA regulations 390.5
Interstate commerce means trade, traffic, or transportation in the United States—

(1) Between a place in a State and a place outside of such State (including a place outside of the United States);

(2) Between two places in a State through another State or a place outside of the United States; or

(3) Between two places in a State as part of trade, traffic, or transportation originating or terminating outside the State or the United States.