Employer possibly paying me wrong, possibly made to break DOT HOS by termination, public safety??

Please read, this needs to change and lives could be saved!

So I start this job and everything seems great and doable and 7 days later I'm driving on my own, no prior tow truck knowledge by the way. And day by day the cracks show. I was working 42.5 hours a week during office hours. Well I was told we are a 24/7 buisness and that 14 days out of the month you take your truck home and from 5:30pm-8am you take calls at your discretion for 25% comission because we are exempt from hourly. The comission is on top of working office hours for the hourly which is 8am-5:30pm. No benifits, and any damage due to user error or proof user error didn't occur come right out of pocket dollar for dollar.

So on call rolls around and I'm working 24 hours a day 14 days a month. Making hourly and comission. But then I start seeing calls get accepted by my boss after being exhausted and needing sleep. I call him asking what's up since it was "my discretion" and he said the only thing at discretion is if you have to long a ETA that you need to call your backup. So I had no discretion and was expected to work every hour needed regardless of how long that could have been.

Then my paycheck comes and it's trash, like $550-$650 trash. When I calculated way more. So now I go to my boss and ask what's up again and now having looked up some laws I'm a little sketched out. I'm told we give different prices to different insurances, business's, and people based on our contracts and owners discretion. When I was told fixed prices for in town and our of town, cash calls and insurance/AAA calls. So I was told to ignore the logs that came through with no grand total.

So now I'm working a insane amount, making nothing, can't understand or see a breakdown of my pay because when I ask I'm just told "it depends", same as when can I sleep on a 24 hour and 14 day rotation, "it depends". Now I'm wondering about DOT, I'm told this doesn't require any special license or training. And that due to weight and travel distance DOT doesn't apply specially HOS..

I was driving a truck I was told had a weight close to 20k Lbs with fuel and equipment. Then would tow little vehicles as small as motorcycles and as big as F350 super duty utility trucks weighing easily 10k+ pounds. I couldn't say exactly as they had steel casings around the whole bed to protect cargo and tools. I would drive these usually within a 100 mile radius but was not limited to it. It was also between states sometimes so it was Interstate and intrastate to the best of my understanding.

Now I'm exhausted, Broke, and helpless. Told I'm totally wrong an that I just need to do my job or move on for being incapable of performing my duties. This happened because after asking about a breakdown of my comission and being told no and then seeing them doing accounting one day I saw one tow with a 40 minute drive time(not including way home) they charged $63 for, that's $12 in my pocket for over a hours work. And the more I started to do the math the more I realized. The $100 in town and $100+$2mile in route+$4mile was for the most part not true. I was told up to $60k your first year but at the rate I was going I would have been lucky to see $30k, more likely 26k

So now I'm defeated emotionally, mentally, financially, and have to work this horrible job to survive but not before the final blow. I'm working a wreck one night after between 48-72 hours no real sleep as I was told I wasn't working enough after hours. I'm waiting 4 hours for highway patrol then it takes another hour and a half plus to load it as I'm by myself, don't have the equipment I need, and so exhausted I'm stumbling and can hardly function. The officer notices and leads a conversation where I say how much I been working without thinking.

He calls my boss and I'm given the next day off when otherwise I wouldn't have even tho I asked for a day off due to being too tired the day before. I go in and get blasted, "your raising red flags! What's wrong with you?! I have a problem when a officer calls me and asks if my driver's okay and saying he's concerned about his well being as well as the public safety becuase your too tired and cant manage to perform your duties and answer phone and tow cars 24hours/14 days a month! I don't care about your financial and personal problems problems, that your house got broken into an robbed, that you don't make enough to pay child support, your not getting anything from me you don't earn and I don't care, your not making what you need because you won't work enough. It's best you move on if you can't perform your duties and do this job".

So there it is, now I'm trying to not only for myself find out what I can do. Pushing drivers to work like this is why any laws exist in the first place and why driving over hours is supposedly the biggest cause of road fatalities in CMV'S. So I'm trying to find out what I can do? Not only do I feel like I was cheated out of money and wage laws broken as a standard w2 worker with no contract, and terminated for asking questions and exposing these possible violations to highway patrol, but more so I don't want someone to wind up a statistics because of knowledge I had and did nothing with.

So someone please help me, what was wrong here on the federal level if any Between DOT and Labor? The oklahama state law level? Civil? And what should I do, Is there nothing here and he's legally right if morally wrong or is there action to be taken and if so who do I call?

Thank you for taking this time to read this, I'm thankful to all for any insight.

 

It all depends if you are a w2 or a 1099 employee, but it sounds like you are a 1099. This means you can legally decline work.

You won’t like the outcome of declining work. So you’re either stuck doing it or find a new job.

 

Legal or not the working conditions will not improve at this company. Leave now.

 

Nope I signed a w2 I have paycheck stubs that shows my taxes taken out, state, fed, med, 25% fed on my comission etc. I was a 1099 contractor doing disaster relief for 5 years before this so I knew that wasn't it.

 

I was fired after a highway patrol officer called my boss after we talked about my hours at a wreck. I was doing roadside, AAA, police, not much we didn't do.

 

I guess the next step is contacting your closest state or city labor department to see what the laws are.

 

I’d go talk to the highway patrol officer too.
“Why?” you ask.
That’ll get him/them involved with that company and shut down their trucks.
Cost them money.

When i pay % i show the gross amount, but i’m not hiding funds.
They may charge different for different companies, but you should see it, that’s shady right off the top.

 

To the best of my understanding of what I read on the federal side the DOT regulations regarding Hours of Service apply to any truck weighing over 10k Lbs, carrying I think 15 passenger's, or hazardous materials. And the HOS defines "on duty" as many things including "maintaining a state of readiness" which basically seems to mean when your obligated to respond and not able to be free of obligations and responsibilities regarding duties involving your truck which don't have to be specifically drive time. I have to be dispatch and answer all calls, keep the truck at home and make sure nothing happens to it, and respond within a hour to first call from home. State I have no idea, so for sure calling labor.

 

Consult an employment lawyer. There are too many variables for anyone here to give you a solid answer.

While I think the employer has at least bent the law, the problem is proving it. A lawyer can tell you what it will take to obtain redress.

 

Exactly, like I'm not allowed to put the total in towbook except for cash calls. All others the provider might put a total if it's outside of our contracted network but for others it's blank and I'm told to leave it blank that the accountant will handle it when back in office. And when asked not only to understand my pay but how to quote jobs when called I'm told to tell them send the offer stated in our contract during office hours, and it will be adjusted as needed. But when i ask I'm just told 'it depends, don't worry the office will handle that", while others I'm told to go ahead.