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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Michael Smart
Robots are 24/7 so are humans, stop work not go when Xi or Putin says go, per diem plus $25 hr some work 60-70 others work exceeding safe crash ya get replaced forever if someone hurt Stop Work Authorities plus OT that’s $$$$$$ saves fuel too. I won’t outwork a lot of team drivers now but I have done in the oilfield.
Dzananovic
We are done nobody cares about truck driver s we work for free I did two loads this week I make after fuel $100 they killing truck business who cares about waiting time Brokers will get 80% off that and they reseling loads to each broker we get cheap loads expensive fuel this government doesn’t care about truck drivers but everybody says we need truck drivers they bring deliver food to the stores we do but ask truck s drivers what we get for hard work nothing no respect no money nothing just problems I’m not able eny more to suport my family I’m shame to say I’m truck driver
Richard Davis
It’s unbelievable that you have some who think this would be bad to pay a truck driver a fair wage because that would put them out of business. Why shouldn’t a driver get paid for every hour sitting at a dock waiting on others to do their job? Other things will need to happen if they put this overtime pay after 40 hours into effect. My guess is it won’t pass anyway because most Republicans won’t allow it to pass.
Richard Davis
Of course, the { ATA } Anti-Trucking Association is against paying workers a fair wage. Where do they get that paying a truck driver for all their hours worked would cause a supply chain issue? If these places had to pay a truck/driver for every hour sitting at their dock, they would do their job faster. By doing their job faster, a driver could pick up and deliver more freight within their allotted time. How would that cause supply chain chaos? The fact that truck drivers aren’t held under the FLSA that other U.S. workers are, is part of the problem with the supply chain issue.
To be fair and honest, trucking isn’t a 70-hour-a-week job and it’s not a 40-hour-a-week job either. Trucking has many types of jobs within itself. It’s not a one-size-fits-all job. Just pay truck drivers for all hours within their 14 hours. Eliminate the outdated 70-hour limit. An owner-operator has different needs and wants than a company driver, yet they follow the same HOS rules. Someone living on one coast that runs to the other coast should be able to do that without stopping because they run out of hours.
Why should truck drivers keep getting treated as second-class citizens, losing their Rights, and being discriminated against, just so a company can make more money? Why can’t the big companies do their job in a timely manner or pay the cost if they don’t? Why is it always the responsibility of trucks or drivers that pay the price, just so others don’t have to?
Chris
I have been a truck driver for 43 years started in 1979 when you could drive 1000 miles a day at 25 cent a mile now and I stop 2022 making 65 cent but when you want to go home and the company says maybe, you can’t have a life that is what they want that is why they quit and go somewhere else
JORGE LAURIDO
More inflation coming your way. The current wages are fair but also outdated. What I’m making now i made 12 years ago. The industry has become pay stagnant. Unfortunately with more pay comes higher prices. Literally going on as we speak.
Curtis L
As an owner of a small trucking company this legislature would force closure on many of us smaller carriers. The trucking industry is already over legislated. Companies are closing their doors everyday because of low rates and high fuel. Brokers need to be scrutinized as much or more than trucking companies. We can’t pay higher rates per mile if brokers are controlling the majority of the freight.
Steve
Again people who know nothing about trucking about to screw things up totally for drivers. Drivers realize you must have a company to drive a truck this will bankrupt a bunch of companies. Wages are high for drivers now, if they drive. The Gov smart people have cut your hours so you cannot make any money (ELog). Blame the people where blame is due.
Instead of nailing the bad 4 wheelers cops pick on trucks (they are bigger to see and more lucrative). Don’t try to rest in a rest area (after all you provided most of the money to build it thru your road taxes) to be woke up to see your paperwork or told to go down the road. Instead of coming down on the receivers for holding up trucks just let the trucker sit for free. Maybe someday we can elect someone who has some brains who can look at the whole picture.