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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Andrew C
One truck owner operator here. I support it. Raise rates. I can legally pay myself a salary and that’s what I do. Any rate raises benefit my company and I can invest more.
Caroline
You can’t have a set pay on a market that changes every week but good luck tax yourselves right out a job lol
Caroline
These guys don’t know crap about trucking mega carriers are gonna pay way less then they are now if you want overtime and put the little guy that pays a decent wage out of business
Dream Girl Trucking
J. Smith is exactly right! And rate of pay has nothing to do with safety. However, we do deserve to be compensated fairly for sitting at docks. Right now the average is zero for the 1st 2 hours & then maybe $15/hr after that. Same rate as flipping burgers. I am concerned that if carriers are forced to hike pay rates after 40 hours they will implement slip trucking or forced team driving. They will find a way to weasel out of paying us more. Hawking that fake trucker shortage lie really attracts new, crash-happy drivers & non-english-speaking drivers are happy to earn $40k/yr while living in their trucks. Maybe I’m just paranoid but if carriers respected their drivers there wouldn’t be a high turnover rate. Moving from truck to truck is difficult. Skipping paychecks while transitioning to a new job isn’t easy. We don’t want to quit but they treat us so bad in so many ways, why would they simply pay us more for the same work? They wouldn’t. They won’t.
Eric B Williams
What the ATA estimate will happen is just not true.At best, if a driver fill as though their pay is fair,they will not leave the industry so fast.In time all trucking companies will adapt and make the necessary decisions to improve not only drivers pay but driver retention as well.Overtime for all is way over due
Bruce Hart.
About dam time EVeryone gets over time pay Except the hard working truck Driver s who always on the road 24.7 Bust there asss to delivers everything to everyone . About dam time
Victor
Yet again, people are trying to force a round peg in a square hole. The trucking industry is diverse in what we do and how we’re compensated. Simply put, if you want overtime, get a job driving paid by the hour. Personally, I’ll keep my percentage pay since I just brought home a $4900 paycheck
Coy
I’m just getting into trucking and getting a time and a half rate for every mile over 40 hours would definitely help make up for the long hours, very little social time and time away from home for extended periods . . Being new at my rate per mile , if I was working these hours at a traditional 9 to 5 I’d most likely make more money . I know I have to pay dues but sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it