Bipartisan lawmakers have introduced a bill that would give America’s 2.19 million truck drivers the right to overtime pay.
A 1938 law guaranteed most American workers minimum wage and time-and-a-half pay if they worked more than 40 hours in one week. However, that law excluded truck drivers.
The bill introduced Thursday in both the House and Senate would nix the clause in the 1938 law that exempts motor carriers from providing overtime pay.
In a larger study of the American freight industry, the Biden administration urged Congress to enshrine drivers with overtime pay, according to the February 2022 document. A Democratic lawmaker introduced a bill to guarantee overtime pay for truck drivers in April 2022 but the legislation did not move forward.
In the most recent effort, two Democratic senators and a bipartisan team of two House representatives are pushing for the bill. It still faces a long road ahead, which includes committee review before potential votes in front of the full House and Senate. Control of Congress is currently split, with Republicans holding the House majority while Democrats run the Senate.
Bill would furnish truck drivers with more pay but squeeze employers
A group of academics wrote for Overdrive magazine last year that passing this bill would likely benefit truck drivers and challenge employers. Truck drivers, under current federal regulations, operate under strict hours-of-service requirements; they are not allowed to drive more than 11 hours in a 14-hour window and are capped at 70 hours of work in an eight-day period. They’re typically paid per mile.
Meanwhile, large trucking employers see massive turnover rates, which they typically attribute to larger lifestyle problems in the trucking industry. Others believe that this turnover rate, which averaged 94% at large truckload carriers from 1995 to 2017, is because drivers aren’t paid enough.
“There’s a retention problem,” Michael Belzer, Wayne State University professor, told FreightWaves last year. “It’s simply because you don’t pay these people. After you’re paid for working 40 hours when you really worked 65, you get to be unhappy. And that’s why they quit.”
Studies suggest that increasing pay for truck drivers reduces crash count. Reducing uncompensated work, like the hours that drivers often spend unpaid waiting at warehouses to get loaded or unloaded, also is a boon for safety and overall supply chain efficiency, studies suggest.
Trucker, safety advocacy groups embrace the bill, while American Trucking Associations slams it
Groups such as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Teamsters union, Truck Safety Coalition and the Institute for Safer Trucking supported the bill in statements Thursday.
“Unbelievably, trucking is one of the only professions in America that is denied guaranteed overtime pay,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in a Thursday statement. “We are way past due as a nation in valuing the sacrifices that truckers make every single day. This starts with simply paying truckers for all of the time they work. With this discount on a trucker’s time, ‘big trucking’ has led a race to the bottom for wages that treats truckers as expendable components rather than the professionals they are.”
Meanwhile, the American Trucking Associations believes that the law, if enacted, would bring about “supply chain chaos and the inflationary consequences for consumers.”
“This proposal is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to boost trial attorneys’ fees,” ATA CEO Chris Spear said in a Thursday statement. “It would reduce drivers’ paychecks and decimate trucking jobs by upending the pay models that for 85 years have provided family-sustaining wages while growing the U.S. supply chain.”
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers earned a median annual salary of $49,920 in 2022. Data from the ATA, a lobbying group made up predominantly of large trucking companies, found that average pay for truckload drivers was about $70,000, before benefits, in 2021.
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LK
Why would OOIDA support this when a majority of its members are not impacted by this? Could it be because they know if this were to pass that, carriers, if they can’t raise rates fast enough to account for the increase in pay will have to park trucks? Carriers parking trucks will push drivers into the owner-op model that would be exempt from overtime pay, so what exactly is the benefit to OOIDA? Certainly not for any good this could do for drivers’ pay, rather, they know they will get more members and more dues. Sad.
Tim
I find it interesting how everyone, especially those who are not involved in the trucking industry, assume they know how it runs. With the overtime pay for drivers – do these drivers in question get paid by the hour? That would be easier to calculate for overtime. Drivers who are paid by the mile would require an overhaul of their pay system to achieve this “overtime” victory. I have been in this industry 29 years in various capacities & have heard this brought up time & time again. Sounds great on paper, but very hard to implement in the real world. Do we have an example of this pay system working right now? Why hasn’t anyone jumped on the hourly wage train for OTR? OTR is different from local. Would this be great for drivers? Yes!! Will it happen before I retire in 10-15 years? No.
Steven Bastian
As a retired Warden i choose to buy a truck and travel the country while getting paid but let me tell you its not easy the truck and trailer arent the problem. Its the shippers and receiver that you pull up to never knowing how long you will be there that adds the most anxiety and nevermind detention pay that you request and never hear from the broker again. Guaranteed overtime is definitely needed.
David A. Poe
As the article says ATA is against this. I work 70 hrs a week for 30 years along with so many others that’s a full time and a part time job no home life ATA is nothing but a shake down and thanks for nothing
Phil
LOL Everyone: lets pay drivers more $ Chris spear: paying drivers more would reduce drivers’ paychecks YEAH OK BRO
Bryan D. Hubbard
We need this law to pass it’s been way too long.
Bryan D. Hubbard
This what I been saying since I have been drink
Stephen webster
Different groups including certain safety experts and health care workers and the nonprofits that look after sick and injured drivers that often become disabled or homeless have pushed for this
The nonprofit group in Canada has been looking at trying to get the same as well as 10 paid sick days a year