ATA’s driver pay hustle
Boy, the American Trucking Associations has been working hard to convince people that when it comes to truck driver pay, there isn’t a problem.
With the push to repeal the Fair Labor Standards Act exemption on overtime pay for truck drivers, ATA has shifted into high gear. It’s pulling out all of the stops and turning to street hustler tactics to confuse the conversation.
This is from a November statement issued by ATA:
“Truckload drivers today are earning nearly $70,000 on average plus benefits, and wages across the board continue to rise at historic rates year-over-year.”
The quote, attributed to ATA honcho Chris Spear, doesn’t stand up to the facts.
The $70,000 includes benefits. Insurance, and stuff like that, is very important, but benefits don’t put food on the table and keep the lights on. So let’s look at actual truck driver pay.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, long-distance truckload drivers for private motor carriers made an average of $52,421 in 2019. Through the second quarter of 2023, they were projected to make somewhere around an average of $63,750. Not too shabby if that’s all you look at.
But that’s not the full story.
The buying power of the dollar in 2019 until sometime in 2022 was much stronger than it was in 2023. We’ve all seen costs skyrocket. Groceries, fuel, homes, etc.
When adjusted for inflation, that 2023 average of truck driver pay wasn’t even worth $120 more per month than the 2019 average.
Let’s get back to overtime pay for company drivers.
I found a ton of manufacturing employers in the Kansas City metro area that hire new employees with no experience at $20 per hour. If they work a 60-hour week, common for truckers, their weekly earnings – with overtime – would be $1,400 for the week.
Truckers were on pace to gross $1,226 per week in 2023. If you break down the earnings to hourly and overtime pay, assuming a 60-hour workweek, they would make $17.51 per hour and $26.27 per hour overtime to earn that $1,226 weekly pay.
With all of the demands of trucking, you would think that the base value of the job should be significantly more than what a high school kid makes flipping burgers.
ATA is trying to confuse the overtime debate, slinging around half-baked arguments about as fast as a three-card monte hustler. Don’t let anyone look at them or think about them too long, just keep moving and flipping over new arguments.
The latest attempt – and where the truth behind ATA’s agenda finally was revealed – was at the Women of Trucking Advisory Board meeting in November.
Board members agreed to support the repeal of the overtime exemption. Except one. You may have guessed the one in opposition was Alex Rosen, a lobbyist for ATA. She tried a few convoluted arguments. As each was dismissed, she just moved on to another one, undeterred.
But where she overshot and actually showed ATA’s cards was when she questioned the purpose of making sure company drivers get overtime pay.
“I’m trying to figure out – is the ultimate goal to increase wages?” she asked the group.
And then she went on to say this (with emphasis added):
“Just kind of being very candid here, truck drivers who are employees under FLSA are kind of unlikely to receive that increased pay because employers are just going to be incentivized to adjust those compensation rates per mile … to account for that new change, as well as the separate costs associated with overtime hours.”
Even with that truth bomb (accidentally?) dropped, Rosen representing ATA muddied up the conversation to the point that her con worked. The advisory board backed off full support of the overtime exemption repeal, likely out of an overabundance of caution, and went for a “let’s study it” approach.
While unfortunate, it’s not the end of the battle.
Going forward, what we now know for sure is that ATA and its member carriers aren’t interested in company drivers making more money. And they are going to do everything in their power to prevent it.
Got it. Now let’s make sure everyone knows and get company drivers paid what they deserve. LL