Following last week's report featuring perspectives from owner-operator panelists and OOIDA President Todd Spencer, the chair of the FMCSA's driver advisory panel, reader reaction was well-considered. Many readers stressed aspects of on-the-job conditions in trucking that most felt wouldn't be solved just by new application of old federal wage rules to interstate trucking.
Overtime pay law's application to trucking, readers said in essence, would be no panacea for driver retention within the industry itself, despite it being a primary goal of some in trucking and society at large, at least as evidenced by discussions at government's highest levels recently.
As owner-operator Neil vanKersen wrote in a thoughtful letter that is featured in full below, "We already make as much and much more than other jobs. In essence, we get overtime, it just doesn’t show in our pay breakdown. Therefore, when the overtime clause is removed [from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which exempted trucking from overtime requirements almost a century ago], companies will adjust pay so that a driver continues to gross the same per year. The only difference is now overtime will be shown."
Plenty agreed with OOIDA member vanKersen on the notion that application of overtime rules in trucking might just be a matter of accounting in the end. One noted that "at the end of the week, your pay will be exactly the same with overtime as without because they know how to use a calculator to achieve that result." The proposal, that commenter went on, "will make zero difference for driver pay."
Some commenters still brought it all back to "fair pay," which Richard Davis felt should be the biggest ask from any driver or owner-operator of their carrier or business partner. "The problem in trucking is fair pay, period," he said. "Truck drivers have been getting cheated for years out of the hours they work. They have been required or forced to work many hours sitting at a dock for free, much like slave labor."
[Related: Time-based pay might improve fairness, reduce detention]
Too many hand down explanations for giving away dock and other time, saying "it's part of the job," Davis added, or for owner-operators leased on in percentage-pay programs or working with brokers, "it's in the rate." Davis dubbed such explanations little more than a "reason or excuse not to pay drivers. ELDs have changed all that somewhat" by shining a spotlight on the basic problem of time.
