OK, folks. Our “public tax money-funded employees” are at it again. The GOT Trucker Act (I spared ya’ll the trouble of digging through the catacombs to find it) was introduced on April 14, 2022 in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Andy Levin, a Democrat representing the 9th District of Michigan. It was co-signed by: Jefferson Van Drew, R-NJ, Henry C. “Hank” Johnson Jr., D-GA, Mondaire Jones, D-NY, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC, Mark Pocan, D-WI, Dina Titus, D-NV, and Rashida Tlaib, D-MI. So let us dig into this beastie and see what’s really going on.
Times have changed since 1938. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is widely regarded as outdated and way behind the times. It was from the age of paper time cards and steam whistles signaling shift breaks. Far from the computers, gig economies, ELDs, and fiber optic instant communications we have today. So what does H.R. 7517 actually do? Well let’s see now…
So “striking” means to remove it, trash it, BURN IT!!! There’s only one problem I have with this; striking just removes the exemption of not having to pay overtime. What stops them from stripping overtime COMPLETELY??? With systems coming out like precise scheduling, similar to the railroad system in use now, fleets can design routes to cut down time spent on the clock. It would give companies the tools necessary to punish drivers who do not perform to those darn metrics. Looking at you, Amazon.
Another thing is what about the rest of the driver fleet? Those that work by mileage pay or on a per load basis will not see any changes. However, the politicians say this affects all drivers?!? It’s great for the local guys running the 8 to 5, but hardly touches the needs of “all drivers.” Detention pay reform, striking the Rand McNally Housemover mileage from existence and going to GPS-based point-to-point mileage would be actions that help “all drivers.” Chris Henry from FreightWaves wrote about this in January 2020 – you can read it here.
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