Tag: department-of-labor

Business

UPS Freight fined after firing driver who refused to drive without a required ELD

OSHA ordered UPS Freight to pay the driver $15,273 in compensatory damages, $30,000 in punitive damages and approximately $2,700 in back wages plus interest. The unnamed driver was fired for refusing to drive without an ELD, and his termination was later modified to be a suspension, according to OSHA.

December 11, 2019

Voices

POLL: Should sleeper-berth time for company drivers be compensated directly?

While recent high-profile court rulings seemed to suggest that even off-duty sleeper time for employee drivers should be subject to minimum wage compensation rules, but a Department of Labor opinion has more recently contradicted that. What’s your take?

July 24, 2019

Business

Trucker ordered to receive nearly $200,000 after being fired for refusing to drive in bad weather

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered Kentucky-based Freight Rite to reinstate a box truck driver and pay him $31,569 in back wages and interest, $100,000 in punitive damages, $50,000 in compensatory damages and reasonable attorney fees.

July 1, 2019

Business

Federal report casts serious doubt on ‘driver shortage’

The report, published by BLS, contends that though fleets struggle with driver retention, there’s little evidence of a shortage of those willing to drive a truck, pushing back against what it calls the “industry’s own account” that there’s a labor shortage in the long-haul trucking segment.

March 19, 2019

Channel 19

Truckers are classified as ‘unskilled labor’? Nope

A new video from TruckerNation effectively debunks this oft-repeated myth. What it doesn’t do is highlight what’s typically happened in my own experience when those invoking the myth are asked for some clarification — what follows, often, is an invocation of the reality of the exemption from overtime-pay protections for DOT-regulated motor carrier employee drivers.

December 19, 2018

Business

Transportation leads workplace fatalities in 2016

According to BLS figures, 786 truck drivers were killed on the job in 2016. That’s 78 percent of the 1,012 motor vehicle operator fatalities reported for that year.

January 11, 2018

Channel 19

Better rates: Employee drivers need fair-labor protection, reader argues

A prescription for improved rates long-term — a reader argues for federal wage protection for company drivers.

June 23, 2016

Business

Major carrier again ordered to pay big payout to driver following refusal-to-drive firing

Brandon Hopper claims he was “confronted and baited” by Marten to resign in July 2013 after he refused to haul two allegedly overweight loads and three other loads because, he claims, he would have been in violation of hours of service regulations.

February 24, 2016