Drivers wages and the FLSA......

But Lowa3468, we ar only low-life truck drivers. According to Ed, we don't deserve to be treated like a regular employee!!!

 

Common practice and government rules/laws are two different things. Just because something is common practice doesn't mean it should be made law and required to apply to everyone.

 

I guess that depends on your definition of "regular employee." How are employee truck drivers not treated like employees?

 

Tell you what go look up the labor laws common practice (I deem as labor laws for my state) it's required bottom line, I cannot speak on all states but do yourself a favor look through the labor laws, then, go look at trucking labor laws, trucking doesn't fall under regular labor laws and therefore is exempt from breaks, overtime etc.... (Last time I talked to labor board about trucking they told me something about how we are regulated with the train laws?) I can't remember but I know labor laws for trucking are way different and don't fall under same catergory

 

I'm not sure I understand what you started off with there, Lowa3468, but I already know about some laws not applying to certain occupations. Which is what the OP asked about...should FLSA/overtime apply to truck drivers?

 

Again I feel that drivers as a whole would be better off if we were given same rights and protection as the general public gets. Some of us drivers barely make minimum wage. And overtime wouldn't really be a factor if one were to include all hours drivers are out and away from home we spend on our trucks. They already demand 1/2 hr break which I think is a starting point to mainstream the rules

 

A point of clarification: The government can't give you any rights. You already have your rights.
As I've already stated, for drivers already making minimum wage, or more, it's unlikely that total compensation would be affected by the application of an overtime law.
As far as low wages go, some jobs are simply low wage jobs and the only way to make more is get a higher paying job. And if you didn't know driving for large long haul companies tends to be low paying driving jobs. Complaining about it won't change anything, but changing jobs to an LTL carrier certainly will.

 

Can one of you who supports the overtime law explain how it helps anything or how it makes sense?

 

I don't get it you're an o/o and surely have some understanding about this industry, and not sure what you're fishing for or what your main goal objective is. I'm outta this thread it would help if there was a point or some sort of reasoning for it.

 

No one forces anyone person to be a truck driver. IT IS A CHOICE!

I have a question for everyone ...


Do you want to be covered under the FLSA and then have to deal with having more regulations (EOBRs are just one thing we will get) to ensure we are not abuse at the same time being very limited to what we do?

OR

Do you want to make more money and be treated as something important?