Attempts to classify Leased Operators as Employees continues

well many other industries are not suffering from what has been created by those who want more control.

The fact (as mentioned before) is to fix a problem with an issue that effects less than 1% of independent contractors.

Nope, just the opposite. The carriers and fleet owners have discussed this, I am a fleet owner who sees this like most others an interference between the agreement (contract) of the carrier and all parties involved. An interference that will cause less jobs to avoid any liabilities caused by these stupid laws and regulations.

they are all independent, no one is a slave, and if the person, owner or driver for the owner can not understand the relationship, then they should not be in this business.

well as I’ve faced this exact scenario a bunch of times, I simply moved to a better location.

I’ve been yelled at and told I won’t work any more but I held my ground and made money.

Wait, again, not a slave. The carrier under the lease regulations can’t hold or retaliate against the owner and this has been an issue where the owner is passive, expecting the carrier to act like they are employees when they are not,

The scenario doesn’t provide proof that the changes in regulations will provide a means for a positive change but rather muddle the situation and have owners acting like they can sue or hold some power above and beyond the contract. Some owners who can’t handle their business as a business are acting as if the carrier is all at fault for their inability to make money when they should be company drivers.

It happens because the owners who are not understanding what is in the contract are them real problem, not the carrier.

Wrong, we don’t have inconsistent court rulings, we have owners who go into a carrier/independent contractor relationship ill-equipped to run their business as a business and don’t understand how the relationship works between the carrier and the owner/independent contractor. These are the owners who come here and complain about how unfair this is, no one else seems to complain.

what I would like to see to fix these problems is education by the carrier to cover these issues, and do what many of us do with drivers, go over clause by clause of the contract that is used between the carrier and the owner.

but here is the rub, the nlrb shouldn’t cover independent contractors, these are people who agree to work either peice meal within a contract as in our case or get paid by continuing working for a company. The nlrb’s scope has been breached with this idea that it needs to be involved with every business to business relationship, which in our case is exactly what it is, a business to business relationship.

No doors will be closed because of liabilities involved. When we are talking about a fleet where there is a mod of employees and owners, the issue will be the owners and their drivers becoming a liabiity that can cost the carrier a large amount of money through litigation or arbitration,

true to a point, there isn’t a large segment, maybe 3% of owners are facing these issues, they don’t know because how this industry is promoted from within, just read the posts in this forum, people saying “the waters fine, just jump in” but don’t tell the people about the hundreds of sharks swimming around under the surface.

The bottom line is this, if there is a change to this industry, it has to be a shift to a profession for most from “it’s just a job” crap, because these stupid knee jerk (politically speaking fascistic) changes just comes down to the fact you don’t screw up the industry to fix a problem that isn’t a problem.

 

Where housing is going up big time around here. Humboldt industrial Park is about a mile from my shop. And across the street from me they just approved 5.5 million square feet of warehousing on top of a filled-in strip mine. From my upstairs office windowI can see them starting to break ground on it right now

 

I just checked your profile. Levittown PA?? We either have to know each other or at least know some of the same people

 

Your assertion that the issue is so small, is one bred of either ignorance or naivete.

The fact that in the original comments on the actual regulation, all the big unions came out against it, while the vast majority of independent contractors and freelancers across all industries came out for it, should be enough to tell you that it actually upholds independent contractors, rather than undermines them.

It seems that what you're really worried about, is drivers, who are working for truck owners that have their trucks leased to a carrier, and won't be able to pay them on a 1099 if one happens to sue. If a driver has no financial investment, does not control their own schedule, does not choose which loads they take, has their P/L dictated by the truck owner, sorry to tell you but that driver is an employee, regardless of wether they like it or not.

If a driver wants to be an independent contractor, they need to go out and buy a truck and go into business, rather than be screwed over by some truck owner. And yes, the vast majority of the time, drivers that are payed on a 1099 are getting screwed over, some don't know it, some apparently like it, and others may feel trapped.

Not to mention, this is one of the ways the eastern euro crowd in Chicago run. They hire drivers, paying them on a 1099, and go undercutting everyone on spot freight. These drivers think they've got it made at .65/mi on a 1099 misc., at least until tax time comes around.

Any one that's actually read this regulation, would clearly see that its not going to change the relationship between a L/O and a carrier, not in the vast majority of cases.

If you want to do away with having to properly classify employees, then work to abolish the IRS, and get that albatross off the neck of businesses.

 

Yawn ... been a long day.

if you think.

You can read my comments on the comments page, it references the position papers that have been created by legal firms that handle labor law about the impact of this in this industry and other related industries. It is pretty clear when a firm that does pro-Bono for 1099 contractors comes out and says this doesn’t properly address the issues but adds more problems to the situation, I tend to believe them over you.

it is just like your claim about eastern euro crowd in Chicago, they are so insignificant to the market that they can take those cheap loads, use the drivers who shouldn’t drive and let the rest of the work to those who are not part of the eastern euro crowd in Chicago.

Again this problem is so small in this industry, it solves very little and can effect employment in the industry negatively.

by the way, have you ever dealt with the irs where they used that 21 point list to see if a contractor is an employee?

I have and I also had to deal with the US and Michigan department of labor, so it isn’t as simple as you make it out as. The irs doesn’t classify the employee, they use the department of labor laws to do this and the appeal process involves the department of labor, the irs only cares if there is an abuse of tax laws.

 

You know it isn't just the Eastern Europeans, there's a whole lot of ethnic groups who seem to want to break all the laws, and operate like they're back in the old country.

And it's not just labor laws they break. My shop is on about a mile stretch coming out of town that is all junk yards, towing companies, repair shops, used truck and equipment dealers,I figure you know the kind of area I'm talking about. You should see when somebody goes out to pick up a wrecked truck on the highway that belongs to one of those types of companies. Most times the trucks are carrying falsified documentation. It's hard to figure out sometimes who the truck even belongs to, what MC or DOT number they're operating under, who the insurance company is if there even is an insurance company. And you wouldn't believe how many times there is no driver to be found at the scene of the wreck,

These guys do a lot of damage to the industry. It doesn't take many to destroy the rates,and I'd hardly call their presents insignificant there's a lot more than you think

 

Bought a 'Flip' 6 years ago to get the heck out of NJ...it was time to move back across the Delaware and get the family state forest cabin lease in my name...worked in NJ since 1982, Avenel, Linden, Carteret, Rahway, Union, Mountainside, Newark, Perth Amboy, Keasbey [twice] and Dayton.....All the 'nicest' places.....

 

I was out of the lower bucks area by then. I knew a few guys had terminals up in North Jersey metro New York area back in the day. Engle Oostdyk was one. Tony Coppola that own CTI in Philly had an intermodal drayage operation up in North Jersey was another one. He had a drayage operation in Philly too. I can't remember the names of those operations, if I remember right he didn't operate them under CTI. Evans delivery out of Pottsville bought more or less all that after he died.

Intermodal operations up there in the early 80s was like the wild West. Trucks leaking oil over, bald tires, fenders tore off, massive air leaks, no tags, drivers without licenses,and yet people were making better money at it than they make today, and getting a lot of freight moved in the process

 

A law firm doing pro bono work for independent contractors? Sorry I'm having hard time buying that one. Please name the firm, I'm sure many would like to know who they are.

Its not a small problem. Thousands of companies have started hiring drivers and classifying them as contractors, when in fact they are employees.

There is no "21 point test" by the IRS. The IRS uses an 11 factor test, which falls in line with NLRB's regulatory guidance. Not sure but it seems like you're just making stuff up at this point, or maybe regurgitating something heard at a lunch counter.
Publication 15-A (2021), Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide | Internal Revenue Service

Misclassification of workers is an abuse of tax law. This is incredibly simple. Workers are classified as either independent contractors or employees, for the purpose of proper tax reporting.

You say the IRS doesn’t care about classification, but bring up the test the IRS uses for classification, you're going in circles.

Even OOIDA could only come up with two objections, and that was nothing more than asking for clarification on exclusivity and third party control factors. Since the DOL is clearly stating that the control over work and opportunity for profit and loss are the primary factors for determining classification, the objections raised by OOIDA, while being valid concerns, are not going to impact L/Os who are properly contracted and can run their business as they see fit.

Having received and reviewed the comments to its proposal, the Department now adopts as a final rule the interpretive guidance set forth in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) (85 FR 60600) largely as proposed. This regulatory guidance adopts general interpretations to which courts and the Department have long adhered. For example, the final rule explains that independent contractors are workers who, as a matter of economic reality, are in business for themselves as opposed to being economically dependent on the potential employer for work. The final rule also explains that the inquiry into economic dependence is conducted by applying several factors, with no one factor being dispositive, and that actual practices are entitled to greater weight than what may be contractually or theoretically possible. The final rule sharpens this inquiry into five distinct factors, instead of the five or more overlapping factors used by most courts and previously the Department. Moreover, consistent with the FLSA's text, its purpose, and the Department's experience administering and enforcing the Act, the final rule explains that two of those factors—(1) the nature and degree of the worker's control over the work and (2) the worker's opportunity for profit or loss—are more probative of the question of economic dependence or lack thereof than other factors, and thus typically carry greater weight in the analysis than any others. -
Regulations.gov

 

Early '83 I was at Vanguard moving tank containers. Shed 220, Universal terminal, Maher was berth 62...and PRIMMI doing RORO.

No drop deck chassis, at least one 20' tank would get rolled over turning onto North ave a week. center pin 40's with a plank deck to bridge a heavy 20...

Using J J Keller's stamp kit to make placards, Dock receipts signed in ink, courier bringing documents in at 5am from NY, no fax and using teletype to contact the brokers...