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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Preston
We are 3 decades past when a driver could make a decent living and was valued by the public. This model is outdated and has been rode into the dirt by the megas. Everyone commenting is complaining about brokers when it’s the customers that aren’t wanting to shell out the money. If the money isn’t there to do the job, higher bids will follow or freight won’t move. They want to cap overtime? Not enough drivers so bids have to reflect the ability to pay drivers for the overtime. It will force higher wages and slightly higher prices but atleast the wages will reflect closer to what they should have been.
Billy Winkler
If they really want to do something it’s the brokers that are holding back money stick it the make them 3.00 or more per mile the big brokers make billions while companies hauling their freight are going broke cause they don’t want to pay
Charles Kinsey
As an owner of a small trucking company based in CO, I started this practice 3 years ago to help retain employees. It has worked well. I would be happy to share how I have done this with anyone interested.
What has put my company in jeopardy is
High fuel costs
low freight rates
drivers taking cheap rates from brokers
over taxation
over regulation
ridiculous repair costs
inability to get parts
excessive down time
lack of responsible detention or layover
….
I would love to share my ideas with the author.
Chocolate Covered Trucking
Edjah man man
I love how some of you are angry about possibly losing your free labor.
You should be ashamed.
Shane Trombly-Burnell
Would not necessarily increase inflation. As a company driver we get paid a fraction of what the company makes. Yes they have overhead however how are the ceos presidents and high management personnel making well over 6 figures a year and barely do anything. Planners and driver leaders are lucky to make 40k a year in larger companies drivers lucky to see 60k a year yet there are salary people in headquarters making 150 to 200k a year to make company policies yet have no cdl. Just like brokers when the driver is in charge of security and timely deliveries also risks accidents and have strict rules and laws to follow why are they making the least amount of money. If your an owner operator you make around 250 to 300 a year however after all of the expenses of truck maintenance etc they bring 90 to 100 average. This is because brokers working at home making phone calls believes they deserve 50 percent of what the load pays yet have no risks or skin in the game. So do I agree with necessarily overtime yes and no. Yes because mileage pay works but when you are stuck at shippers for hours you make no money and of you get detention pay it’s a joke. My company if I wait somewhere for 3 hours I make a whole $16. Yet my clock doesn’t stop so automatically instead of being able to work 14 hrs is down to 11. So overtime would make up for this. But again I’m against it because if I have no downtime and drive for 11 hrs straight I’m getting my mileage pay. So how do I think it should be a split payment scale. While driving you get your mileage pay. While on duty not driving a actual fair wage the entire time. So if I drive 8 hrs but was on duty not driving for 5 hrs I would get hourly pay for the 5 hrs only. Not the full 13 hrs I worked it the day. On duty for those who don’t know is pre trip post trip fuel driving at shippers under yard move sitting at the docks etc. Anything work related besides driving on the road. This method pays you if your waiting for a tire repair waiting to get loaded or unloaded etc. Doing something where legally speaking we are working meaning we can’t just go and do whatever we want we are there until done. A fair wage to me would be $30 an hour. Why well say you make 60 cents a mile and I’m 10 hours you drive about 550 miles that’s about $330. If you sit there for 10 hours yet still working that’s $300. This prevents accidents why. Not in a rush to keep moving to make money because you sat for 2 hours making nothing which lowered your mileage for the day. Won’t push past fatigue because your not rushing and making risky calls to make more money. And alot more benefits to this. Will not increase inflation because yes the shipper gets charged the hourly rate if they have you waiting for unload or load so if they were more organized it may only cost them 30 for 1 hour for thousands of dollars of product. Also doesn’t necessarily increase the cost for employers because they keep you moving won’t add extra cost going to the employee so planners will have to plan loads to keep drivers moving and less sitting.
So overtime isn’t necessary just pay fairly the entire time working whether it’s driving under the mileage scale or hourly when at shippers maintenance shop or waiting for a load when we still have plenty of time to drive.
Tiny tank
Something needs to be done to boost the freight rates. In 1979 a TV show, “BJ & the Bear” had a main character that would haul anything anywhere for $1.50/mile. If it were today, that number would be $6.58/mile, but rates are stuck at $1.50-$2/mi.
Walter Bennett
Where do you get $70000 a year for avg.
Big D
This is the start of a very needed and helpful proposal for the trucking industry. We’re over capacity. There needs to be far less carriers in place. Also there needs to be a push from the ground up. The drivers need to demand and get more money. The carriers need to pass that increased cost on to the brokers and shippers. Yes it will drive up the costs of some things, but that’s simply a correction that needs to happen.
Brokers will not cease their bad actions and shippers will not pay more to move products unless they are forced to. Carriers will not pay drivers what they’re worth until we the drivers force them to. The time between paying the drivers fair compensation and between forcing higher cost onto the brokers and shippers will be where we loose more capacity, but we need to for the benefit of the driver and the carrier.
We as drivers have the monopoly on operating the truck, without us, the nation dies within a week. The market I’d held to artificially low rates because we let them through over capacity and destructive competition. It’s high time to take our market share back.