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Originally Posted by GMAN
If you travel across states lines you come under the jurisdiction of interstate commerce. That is regulated by the Federal government. Since drivers can do other things other than work during those times, they are exempted from the Fair Labor Standards Act. In other words, they cannot be supervised. Drivers would be paid for playing video games, surfing the Internet or anything but working.
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I understand the federal jurisdiction, but I don't think your explanation makes any sense. There are plenty of local companies that run intrastate freight where their drivers run sleeper trucks and are paid by the mile and not supervised. The only difference is that they're not crossing state lines. Not all local drivers are paid by the hour.
So your argument doesn't hold water.
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That is why most drivers are paid by the mile or percentage. It is actually better for the carrier and drivers, at least for those who work. It enables those who work harder to earn a bigger paycheck. Those who slack off are not going to be paid for their lack of productivity.
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Yeah the slackoffs won't get paid. But neither will the guy who has hours, wants to run, and the company can't find him a load. Which means he sits in the truckstop earning no pay. How fair is that?
And when he does work, he isn't compensated for all his labor. He gets shorted on the miles he drives, he drops/hooks trailers for free, inspecations for free, looking for MT's, checking-in, sweeping/washing out trailers for free, sits in traffic for free, etc, etc, etc, etc...for free.
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The companies benefit by only having to pay drivers for their productivity.
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Not really. The carriers pay layover pay...but it's after 24 hours. So the OTR guys are getting paid to sit around and play video games. Same deal with breakdown pay and detention pay.
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The company has no way of knowing for sure who is working and who isn't.
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Are you serious? Most fleets use qualcomm or other computer-assisted dispatching. They know where the truck is, how fast it's going, whether it's on or off, idle time, overspeed, etc...that's like having a boss over your shoulder 24/7.
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There is no incentive for the hourly wage earner to be more productive since they are paid the same whether they work or not.
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Yeah, all those UPS package car drivers sitting around doing nothing LOL! You ever see those guys run from their package car to your house? I have.
There is an incentive...it's called getting fired from a good job.
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They could drive or sit in a truck stop and they would be paid the same money.
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Yeah, I have lots of time to sit around truckstops with 22 stops to do in 8-9 hours. :roll:
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I would not want to limit my income by being paid by the hour.
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This doesn't make sense, either. Both the hourly and .cpm driver are limited by the HOS...neither one of us can work more than 70 hours in a week, nor drive more than 11 hours, nor work more than 14. Being paid hourly has nothing to do with it.