Truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s last paycheck from Prime Inc., the 15th-largest trucking company in the U.S., was $712.
Oliveira needed that money during his job change to a new trucking company. But he said Prime refused to pay up, so he got lawyers involved to see if he could secure the cash.
The Massachusetts native soon encountered a batch of decades-old labor laws that treat truck drivers differently than other workers. Unlike most workers, truck drivers are excluded from laws that require employers to pay them minimum wage or overtime. (Prime did not provide a statement concerning Oliveira’s claims, which formed the basis of a lawsuit that eventually went to the US Supreme Court. The court ruled unanimously in Oliveira’s favor.)
“Drivers are completely vulnerable because no one protects us,” Oliveira told me recently. “There are all these other laws that we don’t have in trucking.”
The public likely doesn’t know that the 2 million drivers who transport their food, medical supplies and (of course) Amazon packages aren’t guaranteed minimum wage or overtime pay. Indeed, Oliveira said it was common at Prime for him to earn under minimum wage for a job that required up to 14 hours of work each day — not to mention weeks away from home.
That could change soon. U.S. Rep. Andy Levin from my very own home state of Michigan introduced legislation on April 14 called the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act.
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