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A federal judge in an Arkansas court has reaffirmed that contract truck drivers are entitled to receive pay, including overtime pay, for every hour spent in their trucks excluding time spent sleeping.
Judge Rules in Truckers’ Favor
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks reaffirmed his previous ruling in a class action lawsuit between truckers and their employer, Arkansas-based trucking company PAM Transport. His ruling declared that PAM Transport’s lack of payment for every non-sleeping hour truckers spent in their trucks violated federal labor laws.
According to the court’s decision, truckers must be paid at least an hourly minimum wage for 16 hours per day that they are on the road, factoring in 8 unpaid hours for time spent sleeping.
The original ruling was made in October 2018 and is being hailed as a major fair wage win for contract truck drivers, who are usually paid per mile, rather than per hour. This type of payment structure suggests that much of their time spent on the road has previously gone uncompensated.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25. But once truckers’ unpaid hours were factored in, many of them could be making well below minimum wage. In fact, according to The New York Times, some truckers can end up owing their trucking companies money due to a combination of low wages and their truck lease, insurance, and fuel costs.
Who is Affected?
There are approximately 1.8 million long-haul contract truck drivers in America. These drivers spend weeks away from their homes and families, working long hours and sleeping in their trucks. These drivers are legally restricted from working more than 70 hours in an eight-day period. Although they often work overtime, they are rarely compensated at an overtime rate of pay. Additionally, some trucking companies falsely classify truckers as contract workers in order to pay them a lower wage.
Aside from misclassification, some companies also unfairly calculate the hours truckers work. Often, truckers will spend hours waiting at warehouses for shipments to arrive. Previously, this time would have been unpaid. However, according to the Arkansas ruling, this time is now required to be compensated, even if contract truckers log these hours as “off duty.”
Contract Trucker Lawsuits
The Arkansas ruling follows multiple other lawsuits that have ruled in favor of contract drivers in the past few years.
In 2017, Werner Enterprises was ordered to pay $780,000 to 52,000 student truck drivers as the result of a lawsuit filed by several former student drivers. In 2016, C.R. England also paid out as a result of a pay violation lawsuit. That case resulted in a ruling to pay $2.35 million to over 6,000 drivers.
If you or a friend or family member is a contract truck driver who has been denied back pay or overtime pay or is not being compensated for all hours on the job, you may be eligible to join a free class action lawsuit or investigation.
Join a Free Trucker Overtime Class Action Lawsuit Investigation
If you have worked as a contract truck driver and believe your carrier has failed to pay you minimum wage or overtime, or otherwise might not have honored a contract with you, you may qualify to file a truck driver lawsuit or class action lawsuit.
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4 thoughts onContract Truck Drivers Win Class Certification in Federal Labor Law Lawsuit
My husband has been part of the lawsuit yet have not heard anything about payment
My husband was supposed to be in the lawsuit with Pam Transport but he has not heard anything in quite a long time. I was just wondering if there has been any settlements yet.
Payments should begin in October according to a letter I received in March but from the looks of it so many truckers are involved we will be lucky to get a couple of hundred dollars apiece the lawyers are getting 5.5 million dollars that leaves 10 million dollars to divide between 4 to five thousand truckers
I was told over the phone before I went to the premiere trucking school I was gonna get paid from the beginning of the program. On the first day I found out that I wasn’t gonna paid the start of driving with a trainer which all I got paid was bare minimum of a $100 every Friday. I got my Class A through CR England. My first 30 days over the road consisted me, another trainee and a instructor. The trainer did that so he was able to make more money which was illegal cause every weight station one of us had to stay hidden out of site either the trainer or one of us trainees stayed in the back acting like we was asleep so dot wasn’t able to notice there was three of us. After 30 days we returned back at premier where we started for Orientation and then start back on the road for 90 days then start as company driver. I finished orientation and returned home for family situation and I never returned. I was supposed to finish those 90 days to finish payout for the trucking school fees which the 100 I received was left after they collected money for the school but I still had a balance of $2000 owed to Eagle Atlantic which was the company that leased the money for schooling. They didn’t teach much only bare minimum to get licenses and the trainer over the road showed us more.