Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) introduced a proposal to reinstate and extend overtime protections for over 3.6 million salaried employees.
While this proposal doesn’t encompass truck drivers, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), an organization dedicated to championing the rights of truck drivers, seized the comment period as an opportunity to advocate for the removal of a long-standing overtime exemption that applies to motor carriers.
OOIDA’s primary objective is to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, ensuring that truckers are entitled to receive overtime compensation when their weekly working hours exceed 40.
“The FLSA motor carrier exemption was originally enacted in 1938 to prevent truckers from working excessive hours but now prevents them from receiving adequate compensation in the modern trucking industry,” OOIDA wrote. “Ironically, this exemption is now part of the reason why drivers regularly work more than 40 hours a week.”
It’s important to acknowledge that a typical truck driver often logs up to 70 hours a week while being compensated based on mileage, which means the many hours spent refueling, inspecting equipment, or waiting to load and unload freight can go uncompensated.
OOIDA underscores the necessity of valuing a truck driver’s time. Under the current system, shipping and receiving facilities often lack incentives to expedite a trucker’s return to the road.
“While denying guaranteed overtime pay is first and foremost unfair to truckers, the motor carrier exemption also contributes to supply chain inefficiency,” OOIDA wrote. “For far too long, the trucking industry has generally only offered compensation for detention time if waiting times exceed two hours. But even this pay is not provided to all drivers. As a result, entities throughout the supply chain, including shippers, receivers, and others, lack a financial incentive to load and unload trucks in an efficient manner.”
In addition to communicating their concerns to the DOL, OOIDA has been instrumental in the creation of the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act, a legislative proposal designed to amend the FLSA and ensure that truck drivers are eligible for overtime pay. This bill was introduced in a prior congressional session and is expected to be reintroduced in the near future.
Under the DOL’s proposed rule, most salaried workers earning less than $1,059 per week, which equates to approximately $55,000 per year, would be guaranteed overtime pay.
Source: Land Line
