US truck drivers are pushing for federal action to address what they say are deteriorating working conditions, decreasing pay and rampant fraud.
Caleb Fernandez, a long-distance truck driver since 2017, said he often spends hours waiting to load or unload his truck’s cargo without getting paid for the time. It can be drawn out to several hours, which will often disrupt his entire schedule for the week and he doesn’t receive any compensation for those hours.
“I think that I’ve got my schedule down and then just one customer can completely mess it up. Even if there’s an appointment, they just don’t show much that they care about wasting my time,” he said. “My whole week gets wrecked because of one customer that just didn’t care about the time. It’s a chaotic life.”
On 1 May, a group of about 75 truck drivers with Truckers Movement for Justice held a protest outside the US Department of Transportation (DoT) offices in Washington DC to demand action on wage theft in the form of a lack of overtime pay and unpaid wait times for delivering or taking on loads, and a lack of transparency of freight bills that have contributed to cuts in drivers’ compensation.
The group said they met with senior officials from the DoT in 2021 as part of Joe Biden’s trucking action plan, a set of initiatives meant to increase the supply of truck drivers by creating new pathways into the profession, but that they have yet to see any movement on their three core demands.
“We’ve lost our patience. This has been going for years and has only gotten worse with the lack of federal action. We don’t need taskforces and studies,” said Fernandez, who also serves as deputy secretary for Truckers Movement for Justice.
Pay for truck drivers has dwindled in recent decades even as the industry has consistently complained it can not find enough drivers. When adjusted for inflation, the average pay for a truck driver in the US in 1980 was about $110,000 annually, compared to about $48,000 today. More than 2 million Americans work as truck drivers in the US today.
Ray Randall, a truck driver for over 20 years who has worked across the US said he’s spent hours in line at ports, unpaid.
“Drivers should be paid detention time,” said Randall. “We believe all drivers should be paid for all hours worked, because once you come on duty, you’re working. If you come to a shipper and have to wait, I’m working. Also, after 40 hours, companies pay employees overtime but drivers don’t get any overtime and we can put in 70-plus hours a week. We can be on duty 12 hours a day and we’re not getting paid for those 12 hours.”
A worsening issue for truck drivers, he said are increasing cases of “double broker fraud”. Brokers coordinate shipments by matching truck drivers with loads requiring delivery. Double brokers use false identities to bid on loads from customers, they take the fee and then post the load again, leaving a legitimate broker or company to fulfill the shipment they ultimately aren’t paid to do.
TriumphPay, a carrier payments platform, estimates that at least $500m to $700m of shippers’ and brokers’ freight payments are going to double brokers annually.
William McKelvie, a truck driver for over 25 years, explained that in addition to unpaid detention time, broker fraud and a lack of overtime pay, layover rates for overnight hauls have decreased in years, down from $500 to $1,000 to $250 or less.
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He also criticized the lack of enforcement around truck drivers’ ability to see freight bills. Drivers have a right to review freight bills, which provide the transaction information regarding loads to ensure all parties that no one is being ripped off. Many brokers will blackball or push drivers out for requesting to see freight bills, said McKelvie, to avoid any pushback or criticism of how the costs are dispersed from shippers to brokers and what portion is paid out to drivers.
“This is something that corporations and others have used their strong arms and intimidation tactics to overrule and overpower the working men and women in the industry,” he said.
McKelvie also criticized the pressures on drivers to accept long hours of unpaid detention time.
“The more of our time that they waste, the more it hurts us financially, economically, and the ability to go and get our proper rest and relax for the next load,” McKelvie said.
“From back in the day we went from working 50 hours a week to 60 hours a week, to now we are at 70 hours a week, and with the extended work, that doesn’t give us any time for any real-life quality,” McKelvie said.
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