Is this legal???
 

My company has it written into their policy that they can garnish driver's wages for any incidents causing damage to company property. Wage garnishment is illegal in Texas (where my company operates out of). A friend of mine says what they're doing is illegal. Just because a company has something in their policy, doesn't necessary mean it's legally binding. Should I call an attorney?

Depends what kind of money your talking about. Is it over $5,000??


Now the tough question....the nosy question.......What did you do, that causes you to have to ask the question??


:bigthink:

Did you sign the form that said you agree to abide by company rules, regulations and policies? If so, you just answered your question.

I would think that if damage was done intentionally or resulted from illegal actions, the company could take an employee to court to recover financial loss.

Should we read into this that you had an "incident"...I'd have a hard time believing that a "company manual" can supercede State Law...otherwise EVERY bottom feeding employer would hire a Philadelphia lawyer to write their policy manual wouldn't they.

Maybe it's time to dust off your resume because 1) there's NO way an employer would make such a deduction from MY wages and 2) why would you want to work for such an employer?

$100 per week for about 5 months now.

I don't remember. we went over a lot of crap on orientation day and they rushed us through a lot of stuff.

If you signed an agreement that stated they can take part of your wages to pay for damage you caused, then it is a legally binding contract. For them to take $100/week for several months, you must have had quite an incident.

And again, how can an employer/employee contract supercede state law?

Just because it's in a company's policy, doesn't make it legally binding. Now my company is trying something else to soak their drivers. They're going to start charging drivers $75 everytime we park on the street leading into the lot. Drivers have to park there on weekends because the lot is full and if you are scheduled for time at home, and there's no place to drop your trailer in the lot, you're going to put wherever you can find a space! You been out on the road 3 or 4 weeks, and you want to go home... what else is there to do? This crap happens every weekend. Sometimes another driver will move the trailer you put in the lot to get to his trailer behind it, and so what if he moves your trailer out to the street? Next week, you see on your pay statement that the Company deducted $75 from your check because the trailer you dropped over the weekend was found on the street! You try to explain to them that you didn't put it there, but they think you're lying! Any other driver that drives for Design Transportation will tell you the same! They take every opportunity to screw their drivers out of as much money as they can! And they can make up any bulls**t excuse you deduct money from your check!
One night I had parked at the Flying J in Fairview, TN. I was legally parked, I had shut down about 2 hours before and was sitting in the sleeper watching a movie and having dinner, when another driver hit my truck while trying to park for the night. My company held me liable, charged me with the damages, took the money out of my check and added points to my CDL to boot!
A month later I was at a customer in California getting loaded. There was only one way into their lot. You had to back in from the street, up a hill and then down a driveway to get loaded. When my truck/trailer pivoted, my mud flap bracket caught underneath one of the cross members of my trailer and damaged the mud flap. My company held me liable, charged me with the damages, took the money out of my check and added points to my CDL to boot!
These are just a few examples of how my company rips off their drivers. No matter what happens, or what the circumstances are... the drivers gets screwed.

This happened last December. I was trying to park at the Pilot in Caddo Mills, TX for the night. It was after dark, the other trucker was illegally parked, and I was trying to get around him to make a u-turn in the fuel island so I could go back down the rows and get a space. It was pitch black and I couldn't see anything to my right. When I pulled forward, my trailer caught the bumper of the truck and pulled it half way off. It was a brand new 2011 International Lonestar. $3,000 in damage.

You not only need to find a new company but also a lawyer! Just cause they say they can take money out of your check DOSN'T MEAN IT'S LEGAL!!! That first week they took a $100 out would've been the last for me!

Unfortuately, I'm stuck here till September when I drop a ticket that I got in 08. Nobody will hire me until that ticket drops off my CDL

Our safety manager is not even a former truck driver. I don't even know if he can drive a stick! But he has the power of life and death over hard-working truckers. He's tries to charge us with every incident. I would say, that out of all the incidents I have been involved with, 75% of the weren't my fault... but we get money deducted from out checks over everything, and bad marks on our DAC reports.

I am not sure that it is a state law. In any case, if you sign a contract then both parties are obligated to abide with the terms. If one fails to keep up their end then the other party can take them to court, if necessary. You should understand anything that you are asked to sign.

Only 25% were your fault?!?

And how the hell would an employer put points against your CDL? Is your employer a law-enforcement officer? DOT officer?

There is no way in hell that Design Transport or any other trucking company can add "points" to your CDL. The only people empowered by law to do that, are police officers in the commission of doing their duty.

IF Design Transport is docking your pay for parking on the street, or ANY damages that occur during the course of your employment with them, contact the Labor Board. SUE them and the trucking company who's truck hit the truck you were sitting in at that Flying J. None of it is legal. IF they place comments on your DAC, again, sue them if those comments have nothing to do with your job performance. Parking on a city street or being backed into at a truck stop are common accepted incidents. AND....IF there are "points" on your CDL for those things, and IF you were never issued a citation by an LEO, get a lawyer, and sue the police officer, the judge and the president of Design Transport. A police officer and a judge are the only way Design gets points added to any CDL.

How old are you??? How long have you been driving?? How long have you been working??? Texas law, and the laws of most other states, indemnifies you from damages caused to your employer's property,to their customer's property and to property of others, if such damage was not caused intentionally, during the course of performing your assigned duty. Hell....even backwards Oregun has an indemnification law now.
















sorry....rant over

As far as I know carriers don't put anything on your DAC until you leave their employ. And as others have stated, no private company can put points on your CDL. I think that you are leaving some information out with your posts. For you to have any points on your CDL you would have had to have been cited and found guilty of a traffic violation. If you have had that many "incidents" I am surprised that you still have a job.

I couldn't agree more - count yourself lucky to have the ability to pay to keep your job.

I had to read this twice, GOOD ONE!!!!

Ive been in management for some time now and our company and we recently changed our policy on the way drivers are disciplined for incidents causing damage. First of all the damage has to be preventable and frankly, its rarely non-preventable. My boss would ALWAYS (no matter what the corporate people would tell him) tell the drivers that they were going to pay for damages. This as explained by corporate is NOT LEGAL! There are three things that a company can do to an employee when they cause damage to company property. 1. suspend the driver for X amount of time. This does nothing for either party, the driver is not generating revenue nor is anything getting charged off for the damage. 2. reduce the rate of pay for the employee for a set amount of time (this accomplishes what the company wants and keeps the employee working even if less happy) or 3. Fire the employee. This is an option depending on the driver, their attitude and or their record of tearing stuff up. The new policy is basically taken from the driver's safety bonus. Depending on the infraction and the damage, the drivers may still end up getting some part of their bonus.

That last part of Fozzy's statement is everything in the nut shell. Those things, especially the one's I highlighted, are the most common punishments "Legitimate" companies do.

The single most common occurrence of punishment is "Time off, without pay" coupled with a loss of the "safety bonus". Now....some companies may only hand out a couple hundred dollars a year, per qualifying employee. Not a whole lot of incentive to be totally safe, for some people......the kind of people who see causing minor damage as a way to get time off to go fishing or whatever.

Other companies though, can get bonus money up into the thousands of dollars, based on safety performance by terminal, by region, by country and even by global performance. My last safety bonus from ARCO was over $7,000. That was with a 14 year record of safe driving. If I recall correctly, my first bonus from ARCO was in the $600 range, for 8 months of safe driving as a company driver, combined with my prior record of 10 years safe driving before ARCO hired me. Yeah....in 1989 they actually looked back at a new hire's performance at other jobs. I saw company drivers at ARCO, who received much larger safety bonuses year in and year out, because of their company seniority. One 28+ year driver used his bonus each year to take his wife home to Japan each January. That isn't cheap.


The truly sad part............in 2003..................that program went away...............................due to a lack of interest by the "New" company........BP.