Is Time Up For No Time beyond regulation in Trucking? [Commentary] – Fleet Administration

Congress is taking a recent take a look at a federal regulation handed within the second time period of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that has prevented truckers from receiving additional time pay ever since. “Companion laws” — two payments meant to run on roughly parallel tracks throughout Capitol Hill— have been launched this yr within the Home and Senate. As soon as handed by each chambers with any variations reconciled, the laws would wipe away the restriction positioned on additional time pay for truck drivers for over 80 years.

If it have been now made authorized for carriers to supply firm drivers time-and-a-half pay after 40 common weekly hours labored for using motor carriers, an enormous dent could possibly be hammered into the driving force scarcity that retains a drag on trucking.

The potential for additional time pay would make driving a truck extra corresponding to how different jobs pay. And, frankly, it might be fairer to compensate drivers for all the additional time they put in past 40 hours per week. What’s extra, to trucking’s total profit, additional time pay would dovetail with drivers’ rising expectations for larger compensation and— even tougher to get — enough “residence time,” or not less than considerably akin to that of typical 9-to-5 staff.

The present regulation carved out an exemption to the Truthful Labor Requirements Act that denied firm drivers entry to the additional time provision that FLSA enshrined for many different hourly staff.

The primary of the dual payments to strip away the exemption was launched within the Home on April 14 by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI). The identical day it was referred to the Home Committee on Training and Labor. Regardless of Levin belonging to the bulk, or just because the wheels of Congress do grind slowly, the Guaranteeing Time beyond regulation for Truckers Act (H.R. 7517) has gone no additional.

A Senate model of the invoice with practically equivalent textual content was launched final month by Sens. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA). No motion has but been taken on it.

The Home invoice is simple, which might’t damage. By amending the Truthful Labor Requirements Act of 1938 to take away the additional time wages exemption for sure workers, it might require “employers of business truck drivers to offer additional time pay to such drivers engaged in a workweek longer than 40 hours.”

“Whereas fixing the discrepancy in present regulation is lengthy overdue… my invoice additionally highlights that we’re at a vital second for the business writ massive,” Rep. Levin mentioned in a press release. He added {that a} current DOT report, “Provide Chain Evaluation of the Transportation Industrial Base: Freight and Logistics,” factors out that, “Regardless of their tireless work, truck drivers don’t obtain additional time pay for additional time hours. Because of this, the trucking business faces a particularly excessive turnover price as truckers can not sustain with the thankless calls for of their work. “

There’s substantial help for eradicating the trucker additional time exemption past Capitol Hill, upping its possibilities of being handed and signed into regulation by President Biden. A number of high lobbying teams that symbolize both truck driver or security advocate pursuits, have lined up in favor of additional time reduction, together with the Proprietor-Operator Unbiased Drivers Affiliation; the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Truck Security Coalition; the Institute for Safer Trucking; Mother and father Towards Drained Truckers, and CRASH.

“We all know that for too lengthy, too many individuals all through the availability chain have positioned little or no worth on a driver’s time,” Todd Spencer, OOIDA President and CEO, mentioned in a press release. “That is partly due to the FLSA additional time exemption.

“Shippers, receivers and carriers have by no means been pressured to account for all of the hours that they hold drivers ready, because it prices them nothing to take action,” he continued. “By repealing the FLSA exemption, this invoice would assist be sure that drivers are compensated for all of the hours they work.”

This commentary was revealed within the October 2022 subject of Heavy Obligation Trucking.